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2024-10-29 Sea Power Day 2
2024-10-29T02:40:50Z New naval warfare fleet tactics Sea Power day has started. Slept pretty OK over six hours (seems like enough for me), did the mandatory computer morning chores, or well actually not "mandatory" but all chores, except HTML web page writing but that is whole another layer in the chore shelves, ate days first meal, had Sea Power mission editor tutorial in mind and fired up PMC Gaming computer to get that done.
Yeah I want to keep my promise to Martin of Triassic Games, I told him that if I get Sea Power preview build I'll finish my existing web pages with 4k screenshots and write a beginner mission editor tutorial. So mission editor tutorial is the new big part of that promise, those existing page updates are very hand wavey thing to consider when they are done. Mission editor tutorial is going to be a raw new material appearing in the web site with new players directly benefiting it day one.
Also yesterday I forgot to move all captured screenshots from PMC Gaming to PMC DevSurf computer, so I kind of had to get over here.
Just now launched Sea Power and "Dangerous Straits" mission, yeah plan was to get mission editor tutorial done but I kind of want to start my day off with game-play and only thing I've not finished on US/NATO side is this mission. I now have spoiler info about it, I know whats going to happen or at least the basic manuscript for it, so I got cheater information so to speak heh.
Dangerous Straits mission, you have a huge wisconsin battleship as senter of your surface action group (SAG) with powerful destroyers and frigates around it, you have those game-y P-3C orions and A-7's already flying in their suicide mission as they have no way to land in this Sea Power build (I actually need to fetch the build number from the game log). So I really don't like the premise of this mission, but it will give me sense of accomplishment when I at least do a proper play-through on this one. Will this also end up in a performance loss bug appearing or was it just a fluke on day one, I don't know.
Also just a random thought, but I wonder where the youtube Sea Power guys are sharing their missions, Wolfpack345 and Stealth17 Gaming has made several missions which they shared them with each other, how could I get those, how/where do I tap into that pipeline? 
Anyways.
Dangerous Straits, OK my plan is to re-route SAG further away from the first anti ship missile (ASM) battery on land, send A-7't to strike that ASM, then proceed with the mission. I believe the objective was to kill soviet SAG which is trying to escape in the N-NE, so this mission has a deadline timer, if soviet ships reach that trigger point then its game over.
Hmm briefing reads: "anti-ship missile (AShM)", hmm umm err where the hell does that H come from? is it a typo or is that a real thing? OK I gotta google this up
Hmm well this is interesting: Anti-ship_missile wikipedia does have two abbreviations, that AShM and ASM like I said logically above. Hmm so I'm going to keep calling it ASM which makes literal sense.
Anyways II.
2024-10-29T02:57:29Z On with the mission.
Did movement orders for my plan and immediately mission shoved ASM down my throat, I just cannot understand why such missions are created where the choice and freedom is taken away from the player, you cannot do nothing but bend over and take it in the ass from that enemy ASM launcher site, everyone was on EMCON so there was nothing to do, missiles came at me minute into the mission runtime, sigh. Oh well like I said before, once I start to create my own missions, there wont be problems like this.
Speaking of mission editor, mission editing and creating my own, now I actually feel quite enthusiastic about starting to create my own, its slightly differen topic but there seems to be limitation in Sea Power current build that you cannot randomize anything useful for enemy units, all you can do is a random chance of appearing, now that is fine and necessary even, however when you then have random chance of appearing with ZERO random radius on waypoints... I mean come on, are you expected to generate HUNDREDS of enemy subs with 0.5% chance of appearing with all different waypoints and settings just to get some sort of randomness and replayability to the missions? Nope, that's not the way to do it, or at least I wont be doing such, I've used random chance of appearance with waypoint random radius, condition to proceed, timeout min mid and max on all my ofp/arma missions since 2001, so if such functionality is not on 2024 title then its kind of scary.
Anyways, back to the mission at hand.
2024-10-29T03:40:37Z Seems like I managed to escape the barrage of enemy missile fire in the mission start, now my SAG is going the long route, hopefully which is not covered with further ASM sites, but I'll recon the locations with my god-mode P-3C orions and A-7's, they can fly ahead and scout for me, its going to be a cake walk finding out where the bad guys are, only guestion now is that do the soviets manage to get to the escape point before I get to shoot them.
Checked player log, its from dir C:/Users/USERNAME/Appdata/LocalLow/Triassic Games/Sea Power/ and file name is Player-prev.log, however I'm not so sure about this being the legit game log as there aren't a single timestamp, not once I saw one in there. Also my current log file looks like... its from yesterday, it mentions my mission editor saved mission several times, unless it simply lists that "this is available in the saved missions dir", dunno.
Anyways from there I at least found the game full build and version number:
Sea Power v0.1.0.0.1.0.13876 (Stable #68)
Man that version number is "something else" 
But its now good to reference that by copy-pasting it to new web pages etc, that this web page info was written using <VERSION>.
2024-10-29T05:45:35Z Realized that iowa class battleship carries RGM-109B Tomahawk (TASM) missiles which have range of 243nm, I created a range circle for this ship and whoah, it already goes well past the soviet ships, so I can already shoot them, I don't have to chase them half across aegean sea, doh, dumb me! 
Only guestion now is, can TASM avoid terrain because there is pretty big mountains between us and them, hmm. Oh well its worth the shot, at least I learn something about TASM (in sea power).
2024-10-29T06:39:05Z Launched 4 harpoons from each of the P-3C Orions, then TASM from wisconsin, unfortunately all harpoons got shut down by defense fire and TASMs by accident targeted kashin at the SW corner of the group, it sank. Then fired all A-7 AGM-45 anti radiation missiles to Kiev where few of them hit, but only did some damage. Overall, yeah one kashin sunk but the main price is still sailing 19kts towards its objective. Now I'm not sure what weapons I have left to fire at those bastards.
A-7's got 6 CBU-100's each, but it would be suicide flying into soviet SAG like this, I wont order such strike.
2024-10-29T07:03:46Z Alarm went off, its my lunch break...
2024-10-29T07:26:46Z Feeding time is over, back to Sea Power.
I actually thought about this before, but now it came up again while having some chow, I want to create small-but-large mission in north atlantic, perhaps in GIUK gap, you are commander of oliver hazard perry class reuben james, some other ASW frigate and then few cargo ships, its a convoy going somewhere perhaps iceland or england, maybe even france I don't know, then obviously the region, not just 5nm in front of you but the whole region is randomly appearing soviet subs out to kill you and the cargo ships. Then you conduct ASW operations to protect the merchant vessels, the mission would be long that you have to rotate helos between reuben james and your other ship because I want to "role play" turn-around-time for helo refuelling and rearming while it lands, AND also it has a flight time, I need to google that up how long range or flight time seasprite helos have, it cant just be in god-mode fly as long as you can and reload instantly. I think that would be extremely enjoyable mission for me to play, small but still a long mission.
2024-10-29T08:44:45Z Performance clearly went down but it was not a game-breaker like the first night/time-around. Then aircrafts bugged, A-7's started to engage enemy helicopter using 20mm cannon but they got locked to 107kts air speed, no matter what disengage/engage, speed etc orders I gave cleared the situation. Then I tried weapons free and then it went all to hell. It was hilarious, they were attacking ships with CBU-100's but just as they were to pop up for an attack, they went after a single helicopter with 20mm cannons, all 4 aircrafts, oh man, what a shit show. There clearly are some bugs in Sea Power v0.1.0.0.1.0.13876 (Stable #68). But this mission has ran its course pretty much, I'm not a big fan of suicide missions, but well in few minutes real time this will be over, soviets have escaped so whats the harm of doing something stupid.
2024-10-29T09:04:02Z Well that battle cost me all my A-7s hehe, but I managed to sink one kresta 2
Few more moments and this mission is over...
2024-10-29T09:29:00Z Noticing a lag spike when selecting units. This mission, or even Sea Power game engine in general, might have a problem with many units, I sure hope not because game such as this is all but useless if it cannot hand two large SAG's and few dozen aircrafts, oh and another few dozen land objects like ASM/SAM sites etc.
Now I split up oliver hazard perry class ships from my SAG as they are holding it back with 29kts top speed, I set SAG now for full hmm is it 32kts or 33kts speed to race after the soviet group, I doubt they get into harpoon launching range but I'll sure try. Would be a nice climax for this mission if they would get kiev destroyed, but as said, this mission is pretty much over now, just few more moments (long moments haha).
2024-10-29T09:44:12Z Now in-game clock is 15:52:07Z and definitely night is falling, its slowly getting dark (march 5th 1985), but I'll finish this mission before nightfall.
2024-10-29T10:06:31Z My SAG fired its RGM-84 Harpoon missiles, now its only matter if they reach Kiev, there are two islands on the way and on my previous game-play in Gauntlet mission harpoons hit the ground, so few more minutes and then I know if its game over or not.
2024-10-29T10:12:55Z Harpoons hit the ground on the island, game over. Exited and shut down Sea Power. Ugh, need to decide what to do next, at least quick news check breather, its been a long morning naval warfare session.
2024-10-29T10:16:57Z Oh well, gotta get back at it, going to try to do that reuben james north atlantic convoys protection mission now, something quick so I can jump in and have some fun, even if it took me rest of the day heh.
2024-10-29T11:03:19Z Found Sea Power missions dir, hmm wait forgot to timestamp; okay so I created "Reuben James NACV" (north atlantic convoys) mission, its got the ship himself and then Knoxx class frigate and three merchants, no triggers, no nothing, just 1985 0529hrs starting time on default date like hmm jun 26th or something. Ran it once to see if it starts OK, it did, then went to browse... something, not sure actually what and ended up finding logs and changelog.txt etc
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sea Power\Sea Power_Data\StreamingAssets\user\missions" is user missions dir.
file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Sea%20Power/Sea%20Power_Data/StreamingAssets/original/documentation/Camera%20controls.pdf
2024-10-29T12:01:52Z Okay got lost browsing Sea Power game files, first impression is that it feels really messy like all the debug and "test" dirs and files are present like devs didn't care what the youtube preview build players could see, maybe devs think these youtube "influencers" are too stupid to figure out even where the game is installed, who knows.
Anyways, alarm went off for a lunch break, time to eat...
2024-10-29T12:53:08Z Feeding time is over, back to, well mission editing I guess
During feeding I emailed Martin of Triassic Games and just now checked and he already replied, basically he said that all those dev WIP missions in game dirs have _info.ini file which property "hidden=true" if set to false then those missions appear in-game, cool, now I get many more missions to play with
[General] Hidden=False Type=Scenario
Changed that, meaning "Hidden=False" to all the _info.ini files in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sea Power\Sea Power_Data\StreamingAssets\original\missions" dir. Now excitedly going to relaunch Sea Power to see if they show up 
2024-10-29T13:01:36Z Yes! All those dirs now show up with bunch of missions on them! Whohoo! Now I have something more to play! 
2024-10-29T13:41:17Z Was loading those missions from several sub dirs in scenarios menu, there is now three dirs called "Demo Missions" all the same name, some are just few units thrown to the editor and few others had actual briefing and all, clearly some time spent to create them. Also funnily I found "GamesCom 2025" demo mission in Vietnam war era, heh I kind of feel like I shouldn't be seeing that, I mean its meant for some big spectacular reveal for that game show, although early access starts on nov 12th so "reveal" perhaps is not the right word, anyways. One of the missions froze loading, the loading bar went 50% and got stuck there, I then went to take a restroom break and when I came back it was still stuck so I taskbar killed sea power process. Going to launch it back up now and browse more missions.
2024-10-29T14:51:30Z Finished quickly rushing through all the new missions that appeared in those multiple directories, most of them were indeed as said just a test or heavily WIP, with one mission freezing on load too with mentioning about some custom dev log something dunno what it was. There were few missions that looked really polished with briefing and all. Few missions without briefing but looked OK judging by location and formation manager unit selection and day time etc. So overall yeah I bet there is at least one full 17hrs days worth of game-play now. But I am quite keen on continuing work on my own reuben james nacv mission and hopefully could spend rest of the day with it
Was considering if I should login back to discord, but decided against it, not now because I want to play and that getting into Microprose discord server, meeting folks (hopefully if they are online and chatting) and so on, that have to wait for another day, now back to NACV for the rest of the day
2024-10-29T14:58:33Z Oh crap, dunno what I did but I completely erased my reuben james mission in the editor, its 0 bytes 
Well I would like to think its nothing I did, I just loaded it on editor and saved it once units were in place, but dunno. In any case it was just a couple of ships, no big deal, not like I spent a lot of time putting something together. Also for the future, these Sea Power missions are stupid easy and efficient to backup, they are just windows .ini files, now that I know which dir they are set, I can create batch files to 7-zip UTC timestamp backup them no problem, no issue if something breaks, can just restore last working version.
2024-10-29T16:52:17Z Ooh, edited the mission a bit, to recap; reuben james oliver hazard perry class, pharris knox class, four cargo ships behind the escorts in their own group. Then I added bunch of soviets subs, but because there are NO randomization for the starting point or waypoints, its extremely frustrating to place those subs, if I just make waypoints criss cross around a map grid box, well over time the sub reaches last waypoint and without any cycle/loop waypoint type, guess he just shuts off engines and stops there for good, no idea. Its just... I love Sea Power but man this mission editor is... heh well I don't want to say anything mean but its like... ugh, its so rudimentary as rudimentary can be, then on top of that the windows 3.1 1990s desktop.ini format save files is like, err WHAT is this
Hey, maybe I need to go into Microprose discord, talk with Martin and plead with him that please, pretty please with sugar on top, add these missing basic randomization options.
Because otherwise, I don't think I will be making many missions, this feels so conzole peasant shoot'em up quick 15min paintball game fun instead of anything resembling tactics let alone simulator, hardcoded starting points and just waypoints until they run out, geez man, that is bad, beyond bad
2024-10-29T16:57:46Z Anyways Reuben James NACV mission is now running and my plan is not to just enjoy north atlantic sea state 3 with my favorite reuben james ship hunting subs. It is highly, extremely likely, that I wont be finding any sub tonight, I mean the random chance of appearance percentage is 5% which is extremely low, and then it s a huge area to cover, I don't even know if I can reach the closest mission editor placed sub tonight if it appears. But the thought is what counts, I just want to have fun experimenting with two frigage ASW operations, trying to role play that helicopter turnaround time and flight time, which I have to google quickly once I get helos airborne
Sea Power 1985-06-26T05:03:56Z, launching sea sprite helicopters in dawn conditions, half an hour to sunrise, good morning north atlantic
Did a quick search, which turned out to be a hunt, had to "endurance" keyword search it, with two extra fuel tanks SH-2F Sea Sprite's endurance is over five hours but one page says 2hrs 45min and two others about three hours, so I'll mark that as three hours.
Okay so now in-game 0503hrs I launched two sea sprites, hmm actually I already see a flaw in my plan, how do I know which helo is which, not sure if I can name them while they fly, but once they are airborne and criss crossing the ocean, I have no clue whos who. This is really difficult now to tell who needs to RTB. Of course with now having two birds up, then its easy, 0803hrs I have to call them back to keep it simple. Then I launch a new one. Then... turnaround time, hmm yeah no idea, I guess that is anything that feels good I guess, when I'm rotating these helos airborne and endurance is 3hrs I don't think the turnaround time is a problem, three hours is plenty of time. Also again, if you have two helos like in oliver hazard perry class, how can you know which one is done refueling and rearming. Argh, Sea Power really needs that basic fuel/rearming feature added
Hmm but I'll try, at in-game 0803hrs I'll rotate the helos, bring out a new one from oliver hazard perry class and proceed.
Its interesting to see how time compression changes this mission, is it my real life gaming time just 15min and that three hours has gone by, or will I be spending time taking in the sights and sounds of north atlantic with my favorite ship sailing there
Anyways with Sea Power, writing war stories, guess this is training for war story writing now, its all a new learning experience I mean hell I just got the game err two days ago
In-game 0525hrs its sunrise now, can see 25% of the sun over the horizon.
2024-10-29T18:14:36Z Well this is interesting, in-game 0657hrs and now I'm getting low on sonobuoy runtime, there are only 5 sonobuoys left up and couple of the are probably in their last few minutes before shutdown, hmm and helos have still just about an hour more endurance left. Interesting.
I mean this has to be enjoyable game-play, to hunt submarines, this cant become some math wizard purist crap heh. But yeah looks like with each helo carrying 15 sonobuoys each, I run out of those before helo endurance. Right now I would already like to rotate first of them back so I could lay another set of search pattern on my forward 15nm circle.
Yeah I created range circle with 15nm radius, because sonobuoys have 15nm radio transmitter range and when thinking about it a bit more, those things are no cell phones, they don't have internet access, so its radio transmitter and range on that is 15nm. Its quite ways away, hmm US Navy MK-48 torpedo range is 20nm so US subs could launch beyond sonobuoy transmitter range, but then again what is the sonobuoy range itself, regarding Sea Power I don't know, in CMANO you saw the passive sonar range circle and it was not very large, in Sea Power you seem to be detecting noises from dozens and dozens of nautical miles away, not sure if that is a bug or by design.
Anyways on my above timestamp alarm went off, been awake 17hrs timer triggered, ouch, I don't feel tired at all yet, I could probably fall asleep if I went to bed but I want to continue playing
On the other hand, this mission is kind of throw away, Sea Power doesn't have a savegame yet, so when I go to sleep this current play session disappears to thin air, poof. Would have been fun to run into first enemy sub and kill it heh, but whatever minutes or maybe max one hour I have left I doubt its going to happen, what I remember from mission editor I'm probably 100km away from nearest soviet sub which had 5% probability to appear, so yeah... chances are slim
I'm still having great fun though, I'm weird
Okay but now I'm going to start time accelerating a bit more, gotta get some action, I could spend the next day in x1 normal speed playing this mission, and who knows probably longer. Maybe I need to "run the math" tomorrow by measuring ranges and such, hell maybe for the test of it add enemy sub probabilities to 100% so they always appear, see if I run into them then.
OK less typing, more playing
In-game 0707hrs, okay time to recall those helos and launch the next one, I need more sonobuoys on the water...
2024-10-29T18:35:17Z In-game 0713hrs and Pharris FFG-1049 helo has landed now, so... hmm turnaround time, hmm yeah guess that was undecided yet, or basically when helo is needed, except technically I could use another helo airborne now, that one will do for now but yeah. But as said this is not purist math wizard strict rule book crap, its meant to be fun game
Besides I just yawned, getting more tired minute by minute, guess I'll get some sleep soon, especially as this playing session has no future without a save game. Hmm thats actually quite sad to think about it, this mission by essence is a long one, so without a save the max you can do is 17hrs a day as I don't want to leave PMC Gaming computer running while I sleep, I cant sleep when I know its burning electricity when I'm not around (sleeping).
Hmm maybe I need to make some quick shoot'em up or at least max "few hours" lasting missions tomorrow, I mean while I love this NACV stuff, this mission would last DAYS and that is simply not doable without a save game feature.
BTW there is a save option on ESC menu but devs have been saying recently that savegame feature is coming soon, so umm is it already here in this version or what are they talking about.
2024-10-29T18:42:00Z WHOAH! NEW CONTACT PASSIVE SONAR 52NM AWAY!
I did NOT see that coming, I was 100% sure no such thing can happen, I mean imagine the odds, 5% change of appearing on all those soviet subs I added and now I'm getting a contact, that is crazy!
Guess its a sub hunt then before bed time! This is perfect ending to a perfect evening!
But man, its 52nm away from the nearest sonobuoy, that has to be a bug, I mean the range of sonobuoys is not that far, it cant be. I mean I'm no naval warfare expert but that distance feels like life time away. Hmm I need to google that tomorrow, now I'll switch to sub hunting mode
Edit 2024-11-04T12:02:02Z, someone in Microprose Sea Power discord beta team channel told me that it could be a convergence zone sound return. Oh right CZ is a thing in ASW sonar stuff, sound travels huge distances with that convergence zone reflection bounce thing whatever its called, yup yup, have to keep that in mind.
Err I was alraedy sub hunting, so let me rephrase that to "sub killin' mode"
2024-10-29T18:51:46Z Decided to launch remaining helos up, yeah its not exactly realistic turnaround time now, I mean when did the land was it half an hour ago, well guess it might be quick refuelling because I didn't drop any torpedoes, maybe the deck crew can plug in new sonobuoys in that time, heh at least in my gaming universe tonight they did!
2024-10-29T19:07:35Z Here I go, new passive contact but this is the same sub, its got to be, its much closer now and getting a hit from one of the SSQ-53 sonobuoys. Good stuff. Now sending sea sprite to drop a sonobuoy right on top of her.
In-game 0826hrs sub contact has now been identified as soviet november class K-11. I am truly astounded how I found this guy, I mean sure its sort of placed in the natural path player would take, but still with random zig-zagging waypoints I created and the 5% chance of appearance, heh just wow
Okay, time to kill this bitch, dropping MK-46 torpedo on her! 
In-game 08:28:10Z, BOOM! torpedo hit november K-11 in the aft right side (sorry dont know port/starboard which is which), now lets see if that did it or does it need another MK-46
In-game 082944Z, what the hell, I got *ANOTHER* contact, this was again very far out from the current location, I mean... come on dude, 5% chance of appearing subs sprinkled around on huge absolutely insane north atlantic area south of iceland, how is it humanly possible that I run into this many contacts, just crazy!
In-game 083045Z, she sank!
First she came to the surface, conning tower peaked over the surface, dudes popped in there, then moment later it dived again and another moment later life rafts appeared, november K-11 was sunk by US Navy sea sprite on convoy escort duty!
I
FUCKING
LOVE
SEA POWER
Hehehe! 
2024-10-29T19:35:10Z Decided to quickly sent sea sprite to hunt the other sonobuoy contact in the north, maybe I can squeeze that in before falling asleep tonight.
Some time after checked my handywork with november K11 and she now rests for eternity in north atlantic ocean 21,517ft deep sea floor. Hmm I wonder how many soviet sailors got into those life rafts
2024-10-29T19:54:33Z In-game 09:38:54Z new passive contact! This was from AN/SSQ-53 sonobuoy.
And its 60.4nm away from the buoy, hmm as I said, that has got to be a bug or some kind of gamification of naval warfare, I cannot believe you could hear sounds that far out. But need to research that tomorrow for sure.
In-game 09:41:32Z contact classified as hostile soviet submarine, dimitrovski komsomol, a romeo class diesel electric submarine. Cool!
I went and checked it out in 3D world (yeah kind of cheat to have such all seeing eye heh) and guess what, the sub was in priscope depth with snorkel out!
Oh man this is insanely cool!
No wonder I hear it, she is running diesel engines charging batteries, well mr soviet comrade, that will be your last recharge I'm afraid
I sent sea sprite to kill that romeo, in the mean time I was just watching her in 3rd person perspective 3D view, between ocean waves so I could see surface snorkel and the sub underwater, man that was so magical, I could just spend a looot of time just watching and chilling like this.
Man I got to tell ya, I was hoping Sea Power graphics and overall visual look was good, but I had no idea how awesome this game/sim is, it looks great, has the whole PLANET as "terrain" area and models/textures in this context look great to me. I just love this game so fucking much man and its development hasn't reached even early access yet! Can you imagine where this game is one year from now with enthusiastic developers, geez dude, good times ahead man... good fucking times
Was yawning and needed a restroom break, zoomed out on minimap a bit and oh noe, my sea sprite is still almost original 60nm away, hehe oh gosh this will take forever it to arrive here, oh well. I wonder if our romeo will dive before its killer arrives
Also wondering as romeo has snorkel out, no ESM, no periscope, will it hear the helo arriving to the scene, hmm
Man I cant wait to see how this turns out
In-game 09:56:38Z game said contact faded, however I am still "connected" to the 3rd person 3D view, follow camera I guess its called in Sea Power, hmm I'll continue time accelerating hanging onto this follow camera until sea sprite is on the scene.
In-game 10:01:05Z poof, romeo disappeared. Okay guess I'll switch into sea sprite now, getting back to that sub hunt mood as the contact faded away. BTW I can still hear romeos diesel engine sound though, that must be 3D game world bug, even if you lose the contact and therefore unit model, the sound is still heard. Kind of weird.
How cool would it be when sea sprite arrives to the scene it would visually spot the snorkel
In-game 10:15:42Z sea sprite arrived to the coordinates I had romeo contact fade on me. Quick glance around 360 and I don't see a snorkel, AI helo pilot doesn't report anything either. Going to fly around a bit before dropping another sonobuoy, not that they would be precious or anything like that, but I just want to see if I missed the snorkel, or did the sub manage to dive already.
This is so exciting I'm almost shaking 
Flew around a bit, but no joy, I cant see the romeo, hmm most likely its like it looks on the tactical display, there is no contact, so its invisible in the 3D game world, it doesn't matter if I fly around all day, I need a technical (or visual I guess) contact from the AI flying the helo. So need to drop another SSQ-53 sonobuoy to listen some sounds.
Immediately after dropping a sonobuoy I got a passive sonar contact, unknown, but it obviously is the romeo. It was fair bit further than previously even though before losing contract it was sailing only 3kts.
Tactical display shows contact as brownish-gray color with "(V/S)" text which means visual and sonar. So my AI pilot sees the sub, but I cannot see it because confidence in unit information dialog is not high enough and game wont show me the 3D model. Yeah I understand that and it makes sense, but still its kind of a bummer as ... I mean in real life if the helo would know how to get to this point, they would see the sub already. Heh but yeah dunno, guess this is the game mechanic that AI have to spot all units either technically or visually before its drawn in the 3D game world for player to see.
In-game 10:19:29Z, contact is made, classified as hostile submarine, its now fully ID'ed and 3D model shows, its directly underneath my sea sprite, yeah okay that is slightly frustrating as I'm trying to spot the sub in 3D world as a human being but I'm not being shown the sub until the AI brain sees it heh, wicked stuff, anyways its all over now, its visible so time to sink her.
Romeo still had its snorkel out, no ESM, no periscope, and she doesn't appear to have any clue that my sea sprite is just about to drop a MK-46 on her, well tough luck comrade, open wide, here it comes...
When torpedo hit the water romeo lowered snorkel, launched two noisemakers, hit flank speed ahead and started to dive, however my MK-46 was right on top of her and boom! hit her in the aft, just before propellers, gotcha you scum sucking soviet commie scum!
Then something happened, the sub tried to surface, got almost to periscope depth when BOOM explosion rang out, no flames underwater but just a boom and water sprout in the surface from the shock wave, after that romeo started to sink, she was dead, rest in peace soviet sailors, watery grave awaits you, courtesy of US Navy sea sprite helicopter.
In-game 10:34:00Z Romeo finally came to rest in north atlantic ocean sea floor at 20,176ft depth.
2024-10-29T21:01:45Z Okay I continued to play but realized I'm quite tired and that been awake 17hrs alarm went off a long time ago, guess its time to call it a night, tomorrow Sea Power sessions continue.
I kind of hate to shut the game off as this current gaming session is in so awesome, got two sub kills and just having a great time sailing the north atlantic, but as said I'm not going to leave computer running overnight especially with GPU straining graphical program like a game running. I'm going to try what that "Save" option does in the menu, I doubt it works but would be interesting to continue tomorrow if it does.
Tried it but save button does nothing, gotcha. Okay.
2024-10-29T21:05:11Z Shut down Sea Power, it was awesome day of naval warfare, also learned a bit about mission editing by snooping those .ini files. Now some sleep and cant wait for tomorrow to blast off another 17hrs, good night