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2024-10-30 Sea Power Day 3
2024-10-30T06:53:31Z Got all computer morning chores done and logged into Microprose discord chat, now switched over to PMC Gaming computer, Sea Power playing continues, I believe this is day 3 now.
Hmm not sure what I can/want to play, yesterday I had so much fun playing that Reuben James NACV mission, but just re-starting it, possibly running into the same subs again after how many hours of game-play and knowing that my 17hrs (maybe little less, I'm late) of today reserved for gaming are not enough to finish this mission.
Although... I could TRY to finish it, I mean is all about time compression or time scale, acceleration whats its called. I could just take a mini goal while monitoring Microprose chat when Martin arrives, I should be getting beta channel access so that might be useful, also I want to ask devs some questions about Sea Power in general, get up to speed.
But yeah man, actually just re-starting the mission fresh now today with full (almost) day ahead of me, I'll do it, I'll try to accomplish the mission today, lets see what comes from it 
2024-10-30T07:18:48Z I'm also preparing some questions for Triassic Games Martin when he comes online in discord, assuming I get to speak with him. But for now in-game Sea Power, well I'm going to start using time compression a lot, I'll really try to get progress done in this mission just to see how far I can get. I'll try to avoid just stopping marveling the sights and sounds for half an hour at times
2024-10-30T08:22:42Z Unbelievable! In-game 1985-06-26T08:20:51Z new passive contact! 
It happened again!
How is this possible, with 5% chance of appearance?
2024-10-30T08:48:39Z During this even got caught chatting with Martin on discord, now continued playing and mere seconds later the contact faded away, then came back and was classified as hostile, it offered range of types, its now only matter of time before its locked down. This is 52nm away, man that distance is just crazy.
I don't mind, its fun to hunt soviet subs like this, but compared to CMANO how extremely difficult it is to find let alone kill subs, its a huge difference, CMANO is crazy difficult and Sea Power its childs play, at least so far what I've seen. Who knows maybe on larger scenarios it might change a bit, when even larger ranges are in play, but yeah this feels shockingly easy. I'm sort of hoping this easy way to detect and kill soviet subs wont become boring at some point.
Some time after, when switching between ALT-TABbing to discord and playing, that contact disappeared, even the gray/brown hollow-alike icon went away. Its interesting that such thing happens, but I do wonder why, like did the sub dive under thermocline thermal layer perhaps or what happened, it could have moved further out too or simply change speed from 10kts to 5kts to reduce noise.
2024-10-30T09:40:18Z Launched another sea sprite to go search the sub contact in N-NE. In-game 09:10:00Z.
In-game 09:14:25Z helo is racing towards the last known location of this suspected soviet sub, then got another contact report, she is back... however I was absolutely SHOCKED to see on unit information panel that detected by Reuben James passive sonar, gulp, that is very bad if my surface ship can already detect it. This contact is now 35nm out.
Half a minute later it was classified as soviet submarine, speed 20kts (well that explains the detection), course 209 and depth 510ft. Shes heading right towards us.
How can that be, 20kts, in mission editor I set all enemy subs to ahead 1/3 which means creeping speed. Why is this AI sub racing hmm is it all ahead standard speed, hmm 
Interesting to say the least!
Contact unit information panel shows possible matches for echo II and november, so unfortunately as I played this before I now know its the november I already sunk yesterday. What are the chances that 2 game-plays and 2 times appearing with 5% chance, hmm I would say I messed that up or its not working.
In-game 09:21:03Z contact faded. It already reached 2.2 confidence number and then suddenly, poof, it just disappeared.
In-game 09:38:58Z ordered one SH-2F sea sprite RTB, she was out of sonobuoys. The furthest out SH-2F is still waiting for contact to be re-established.
In-game 09:40:26Z new passive contact from AN/SSQ-53.
In-game 09:42:26Z now its classified as soviet submarine, speed 10kts, course 263 and depth 410ft.
In-game 09:45:29Z that's it, I got you now. Contact classified as november K-11, my friend from yesterday 
Okay time to break out the MK-46 and get some.
In-game 09:47:20Z boom! MK-46 struck left side (yeah I promise to learn port/starboard terminology) of the november K-11, engines stopped. Okay now lets see if it sinks or does some surface survival thing, this is going to be exciting.
Minute later she started to surface, this is so cool!
Once it reached about periscope depth is suddenly stopped rising, this was very artificial alike stop like it hit some kind of ceiling, it didn't look like a natural stop on the raise. Could this be what happened yesterday, will there soon be explosion and then she starts to sink like a rock, hmm.
Hmm nope, it started to slowly sink, no sounds no explosion no nothing, just slowly started to go down, this has been 0kts stopped right after the torpedo impact.
She sank back to 410ft and stopped, hmm hmm this feels quite artificial, not saying its a bug but... it just doesn't look natural surfacing and diving changing depth functionality.
Then november K-11 was just stationary there, not moving, not changing depth. I can only assume that crew is fighting fire or flooding or both trying to save the boat. But who knows, it could be some submarine game engine bug as well, as said the depth changing was really artificial feeling, also if this is crew trying to save the boat, how is it possible that they happen to stop just at the exact same spot in 410ft depth, it feels more like the sub was on railroad tracks first going up, then immediately halting, then starting to go back down and ended up where it started on 410ft. But dunno, will wait for explosion or some sort of resolution, I'm hoping that soviet sailors are frantically trying to save the boat
In-game 10:00:26Z was watching in time compression (just x3-5) as dive planes were flickering just a bit and then suddenly... propellers started to move, shes got propulsion! Whoah so cool, soviet sailors fixed her engine at least! Awesome! I apologize for even mentioning bugs 
In-game 10:01:51Z she got into 5kts speed and started to turn right. Hmm does she think she can escape from my overhead SH-2F
Ordered SH-2F to drop second MK-46 on the K-11, time to go deep.
In-game 10:03:43Z K-11 was struck for the second time, now torpedo impacted on the aft dive planes area, the neck so to speak. She is done, she cant survive this, even if she doesn't sink she is not going to get propulsion back for sure.
I love killing soviets
In-game 10:04:09Z its nite nite! She started to sink, bubbles come out and she is going down, goodbye soviet sailors, was fun killing you.
In-game 11:07:30Z november K-11 is now laying its final resting place, in bottom of the north atlantic ocean in 21,249ft depth, yikes.
Ordered one SH-2F RTB, she is out of sonobuoys. Going to launch next one on the rotation to take its place.
2024-10-30T11:39:12Z Then I was back into sonobuoy pattern searching while ships creep forward ahead 1/3 speed, been having some problems with the cargo ship formation, they cant find their position in the formation so lead is being hold up by "kids in the back" so to speak. Then I loosened it a lot, maybe that helps. Should be able to switch to ahead 2/3 speed to get this rolling.
In-game 14:17:11Z ordered one SH-2F RTB, refuel and rearm time.
In-game 17:37:13Z one sea sprite landed and another took off from Reuben James, search continues.
2024-10-30T12:38:30Z Alarm went off in the phone, time to take a lunch break...
2024-10-30T13:05:25Z Feeding time is over, back to north atlantic convoy escort duty.
During eating I got access to Microprose Sea Power beta team channel, cool
In-game 21:12:06Z new passive sonar contact by AN/SSQ-53 sonobuoy, 19.5nm away from closest buoy (the one I assume who got the contact). Noise 7.3db, speed 20kts, course 293 and depth 416ft. Its a submarine. Okay the hunt is on. She is going quite fast towards west, slightly W-NW, interesting.
In-game 21:27:03Z SH-2F dropped a sonobuoy and immediately got contact from the submarine, speed 5kts, course 111 and depth 110ft.
In-game 21:28:27Z ding! ding! ding! Several hits, visual sighting and MAD. Okay I got her now.
I went to take a look in 3D game world but again couldn't see anything, contact is still gray/brown color not even identified yet even though my helo got visual on it, was it a mast then, hmm. Kind of odd, not technically but just odd to experience it that even AI got visual sighting but I am still unable the see the unit in 3D world.
In-game 21:29:21Z on the next overflight got MAD hit again and now AI classified it as soviet submarine, speed 10kts, course 127 and depth 140ft. This is a attack boat, either charlie 1 or 2 or victor 3.
In-game 21:32:50Z dropped another sonobuoy just in front of it, now immediately got a final classification; soviet charlie 2 K-209 SSGN. You're mine.
In-game 21:35:23Z hit, MK-46 struck charlie 2 K-209 in the propeller plane things in the aft, nicely done. She lost propulsion like they usually do, now its very cool again to watch what happens next.
About three minutes later K-209 started to surface, hmm unfortunately this seems like a routine now, subs get hit, they stop, they wait a bit, then they surface and most likely die after reaching surface, if not then I fire at them again. But this stop-wait-surface is like a clear programming routine, I don't like to see it, there should be more variation, keel over and sink then implode, try to creep away or completely surface to escape certain death, etc all kinds of variations.
In-game 21:39:40Z yeah same deal here again, sub surfaced so that conning tower was above water, hold there for few moments then started to dive (or sink, not sure which) again. I assume this is on the long run the goodbye dive for them. I have to assume that surface was some kind of getting air and blowing out excess flood water, no idea.
In-game 21:41:05Z it dived to 260ft and stopped there, same as before (well except different depth). Now it might be able to pause here a while and then restart engines, that happened once, hmm very interesting to see how this plays out.
Half a minute later engines started, yep I've seen this behavior before, here I go again, might as well send SH-2F to drop another torpedo on her right away, but I'll follow along a while.
In-game 21:42:09Z new passive sonar contact, submerged unknown contact, 61.52nm from the AN/SSQ-53 which detected it (at least one of them as there are two very close to each other). That is a far far away.
I marked the new contact on tactical display and concentrated back on charlie 2 K-209.
In-game 21:47:54Z contact in the north is classified as soviet submarine, speed 18kts, course 210 and depth 350ft. Wow.
In-game 21:50:42Z fired another torpedo to K-209 and boom it hit straight in the right side (yes yes I learn the term soon). Now shes gotta be sinking.
In-game 21:51:36Z the time of death is here, charlie 2 K-209 SSGN is sinking, so long charlie, you were a good target.
In-game 22:03:56Z new passive sonar contact from AN/SSQ-53 sonobuoy, oh man this is crazy, unknown submarine, distance 38.32nm, speed 3kts, course 144 and depth 32ft, she is on periscope depth, oh wow. Now I'm running out of free helos to track and kill all these subs
I'm quite new to Sea Power but I find it very surprising how easy it is to spot submarines, they literally fall into my lap. Sure I have kept meticulous sonobuoy search pattern going looping through those available helos so 2 is always on station monitoring the buoys and dropping more when needed, but still this is like a night and day difference to CMANO ASW operations, there is no comparison.
Its also baffling how many submarine contacts there are, with 5% chance of appear it is pretty crazy to see this many subs THAT I CAN FIND, who knows how many are out there that slip by my sonobuoy patterns and reuben james towed array sonar.
In-game 22:06:10Z sub contact classified as soviet romeo class dimitrovski komsomol, heh the same guy I killed yesterday
Hmm now that I'm thinking about it, did I also kill that charlie 2 K-209, I don't think so, charlie was a new class I encountered today, yesterday I did the november and romeo. Yup. Today I'm topping yesterdays hunting stats if I can bag this romeo
Never imagined that contacts would appear so far away, for example this romeo is due E of my convoy route about 35nm.
Hmm seeing there are contacts on the side like this, I have to start putting more sonobuoys on the side of the convoy, not far out but usual 15nm radius circle, because one of these lucky soviet bastards could sneak in from the flank while I've already sanitized the forward area on moved on, I don't pay no attention to my six (180 degrees, ie rear). Man it would be embarrassing to suddenly have explosion on the convoys last ships heh. Yeah, will adjust my sonobuoy patters now for sure.
In-game 22:27:51Z its sunset now, soon it will be dark, interesting to see how my convoy escort duty changes when the night falls. This is scary, and so cool! 
In-game 22:30:23Z SH-2F dropped a sonobuoy right next to the romeo, got a new contact, yeah guess it was lost earlier. Also I realized that this helo is out of torpedoes, guess this was the one who killed the charlie 2 earlier, should have checked before sending it to 35nm out
In-game 22:32:42Z classified romeo again as known contact, same stats as before, she has not changed heading, she is now snorkeling. Darn I need a helo with torpedoes here right now.
Oh man this is so exciting to get a torpedo laden helo on the scene. Hunting soviet subs at dusk, night is falling so quickly, mission started at 0500hrs I believe and now its already night time, man this is beyond awesome!
In-game 22:56:09Z SH-2F arrived at the romeo scene, time to track her and kill her...
Minute later MK-46 was on the water and heading towards comrades. But for some reason the torpedo turned right and veered off from the target, even though it has green targeting line to it, huh what happened
Dropped another MK-46 on the romeo but it missed on the first pass as well, I believe it was spoofed by a noise maker. While this engagement was going on the contact in N that slipped away came back, its classified as soviet submarine. Okay two things happening at once, need to maintain focus, kill the romeo first, then head over to N to handle that track
In-game 23:09:10Z boom romeo got hit by MK-46! Yeah buddy!
in-game 23:10:18Z romeo imploded, she is sinking, that is another kill for me
Then that N contact was classified as Echo 2 K-1. Well hello K-1, you are about to get torpedoed.
In-game 23:13:36Z dropped MK-46 torpedo on K-1, she immediately heard it, pumped out noise maker and ran.
In-game 23:15:13Z K-1 was hit by the torpedo, middle of the boat, boom!
Echo 2 is a tough son of a bitch, she kept going even after that torpedo hit. So I ordered SH-2F to drop another torpedo on her. K-1 launched noise makers and spoofed the torpedo, hopefully torpedo comes back around and gets her.
2024-10-30T15:58:49Z There are now similar lag spikes, freezes, every now and then as I had in the Dangerous Straits mission. It feels like when Sea Power game runs for hours, the mission and all its units cause something that starts to choke the engine. I said earlier in my youtube video watching review that I cant think of what might be that bad that I didn't like or couldn't play Sea Power, but well maybe I wasn't imaginative enough, this could easily be one of the issues, if long lets say 4hrs+ missions start to cause freezes when engine is chocking up, then that is... a bad deal. If you cant enjoy naval warfare other than some quake kidz fast 15min shoot'em up then whats the point playing. But even if this was the case in current build, I sure hope devs fix it and I'll do whatever I can to provide testing data for new builds, even if it takes me half a day of playing for one test result.
In-game 23:59:35Z dropped MK-46 on the Echo 2 K-1, hopefully it hits this time.
Day changed to in-game 1985-06-27
In-game 1985-06-27T00:01:46Z torpedo hit, I cannot see the unit in 3D model so it was just an noise and explosion, but the K-1 got hit, again. Oh and its also june 27th now, a new day (ZULU) has started
In-game 00:03:28Z now the unit shows up in 3D world, it got hit on the right side in the tail, ouch. It must be going down soon. But again, same thing, two MK-46 hits and sub still keeps struggling against sinking, it most likely will sink now but yeah this is very familiar pattern here now, seems like most sub kills follow the same routine.
In-game 00:04:15Z Echo 2 K-1 imploded and started to sink, another kill, hooyah!
In-game 00:11:35Z launching another SH-2F, gotta keep that sonobuoy pattern snooping for soviet subs, its night time, its scary time...
Few minutes later helo was airborne and heading over to drop sonobuoys to the range circle marked on tactical display, another task got started.
In-game 01:04:32Z another helo done its sonobuoy dropping, RTB for refuel and rearm.
Few minutes later launched another helo from Reuben James.
Hmm night time music tracks started to play around 01:00:00Z, those creepy tracks, ooh!
In-game 04:02:48Z another helo RTB, out of sonobuoys, nothing has happened in the past few hours, sky starts to light up slowly, its going to be sunrise in one and a half hours I think, which also marks around 24hrs in-game time in this mission.
In-game 04:10:58Z sun's glow start to appear on the horizon now, its slowly coming up. This is jun 26th to 27th night, so it really didn't get dark at all, I mean darker yeah but not like pitch black dark couldn't see anything dark, not even close. It just looked pretty reddish type glow on the horizon.
It feels kind of crazy that this mission now enters for the second day, sun comes up and then its day time again, how cool is that
In-game 04:58:39Z sun starts to come out now, just can barely see its top at the horizon. Its going to be daylight soon.
In-game 05:08:26Z sun is now up about half way through, its lighting up the ocean surface, guess I can now say Good Morning North Atlantic Ocean
2024-10-30T18:11:51Z And in real life gaming session I'm starting to feel a bit tired, eyes get sore/trained of all day hunting soviet submarines. But still 2hrs 20min in my been awake 17hrs timer, so plenty of time.
In-game 05:43:52Z you could basically say its now bright daytime.
So yeah my real life day has only two hours left, there is no way I could finish this mission in that time, assuming there will be that many sub kills as so far, there are still I believe 400nm to go heh, man this journey is a crazy one. I am not going to be finishing it in one session, this mission has to be saved for such time that Sea Power gets savegame feature and I can do this mission in two real life day gaming sessions
In-game 06:28:08Z new passive sonar contact, this is inside the outer 15nm sonobuoy circle I'm currently sanitizing, WELL inside the circle, how the hell did this sneaky bastard got himself in there, whoah dude!
Immediately redirected one of my SH-2F's to drop a sonobuoy on top of that contact report. When buoy dropped it immediately classified it as submerged soviet submarine, speed 5kts, course 269 and depth 220ft.
In-game 06:31:09Z its final classification got done, Oscar class K-206 Murmansk SSGN, yikes! That is a bad sub, she cannot be let near my ships, unfortunately it is already within SS-N-19 Shipwreck range which is sickening 378nm. If this sub would get contact on my ships, it would be game over pretty much.
Reuben James is 35.5nm away from the oscar, oh geez maan, this is not good, not good at all. I immediately reduced both groups speeds to ahead 1/3, its creeping time until that oscar has been taken care of. Man I am truly shocked how it got so close, it simply snuck into the sonobuoy defensive line and I don't see me having any gaps in it, been actively hustling sea sprites dropping buoys like crazy. This just got real.
As the hunt begins for this oscar, I must say that whoah, I had no idea, ZERO clue that this quick reuben james nacv mission would turn out to be such a awesome lightweight but extremely long mission, this is SO COOL!
In-game 06:33:55Z ordered SH-2F to launch 2 * MK-46 torpedoes at this oscar, she is a fat girl, lets give her a heavy dose of torps.
In-game 06:36:26Z two direct hits on the oscar! Whohoo! Get some!
Now the wait begins to see what happens, it indeed seems like a same deal every time, sub gets hit and then just sits there a while before it decides so to speak whats going to happen to it, sure I can role play imagine that soviet sailors are fighting flooding, fires and all that, but yeah well dunno.
But this is now my first time firing at oscar class submarine. Gave RTB order for the helo, shes out of torpedoes and only one sonobuoy left, time to rearm.
In-game 06:37:60Z (heh sixty?) I heard some thud sound on the sub, if I'm not mistaken it also activated camera shake, could that have been some internal explosion?
In-game 06:42:46Z there was now a loud explosion sound without any effects and sub got damaged on the outside, no big holes or anything but just "blown up" on the surface, like black charred metal and now on tactical display the sub is dead, she is still (few seconds after the explosion) just sitting there at 220ft, but yeah game-wise she is dead.
In-game 06:46:25Z wait wait wait, what is this, its now surfacing quite rapidly, no sounds or bubbles or anything, she is just coming up fast almost like she blew ballast tanks, hmph
In-game 06:47:14Z conning tower breached the surface, after it awkwardly stopped on its tracks at periscope depth (32ft I think it was).
It came up to the surface so that deck was awash or how they say, soviet flag came up on the conning tower but no sailors, then it suddenly started to sink. Umm err, whats going on here!?
2024-10-30T19:32:06Z Unfortunately at this point Sea Power is stuttering a lot, revious hours it was the freezes every few moments maybe like once a minute or so, but now as I'm flying my SH-2Fs to drop sonobuoys it stutters like every 3sec or so, its constant, also it doesn't appear to handle x10 time compression, if I ran that then the freeze started to become like 5sec or even longer, I was pretty much expecting it to crash at that point.
So yeah... as with Dangerous Straits mission, I have to conclude as it now has happened three times, that Sea Power engine has some kind of issue with LONG, possibly large missions. I truly hope this is not the case or that it can be fixed, because if this game is limited to ridiculous 15min paintball type shoot'em up matches then its truly not worth playing 
But dunno, maybe I'm just too tired, my eyes are shot, have to blink a lot to see, and yeah I'm ready for bed, so maybe my thoughts are kind of half a sleep as well, but this just feels bad now with mission/game stuttering like crazy, you cant play like that.
2024-10-30T19:40:04Z Okay less than an hour left in my been awake 17hrs timer, its time for me to call it a night, I cant play any longer with my eyes being this strained, constant blinking, I'm just not enjoying myself with these game stutters too.
Tomorrow, well hmm I'm definitely not going to play this same mission again, I had my fun, I did what I planned, some cool reuben james north atlantic convoys action, had a really good time, but tomorrow I need to come up with something new. Maybe its time to switch into documenting side of things, or learning more about missions. But at the same time I'd like to finish some HTML web editing I was doing on sunday when I got sent Sea Power serial key, hmm will have to see how tomorrow morning feels like.
2024-10-30T19:43:14Z But for now its time to say good night, today was awesome naval warfare day. Cu on the next one, nites.