Red Tide Scenario 1 Feedback

[HalfLifeExpert]

I'm so excited that Red Tide is finally out, I just have one bit of feedback for a potential future patch regarding scenario 1: The Bedford Incident.

While I fully understand the intention, having an ASW exclusion zone around Svalbard makes it difficult to actually filter out and ignore biologic contacts, with Units on ASW missions getting locked down on what is almost certainly a false contact or whale.

Of course the player can remove the exclusion zone, but for smoother gameplay I think it should be removed in a future patch.

More important feedback in subsequent posts.

[BDukes]

The first scenario was fantastic. Set the tone for the thing well. Lots of tension and some great moments.

Won but took a hit in the process. Not enough to sink though! Perfect. Created my own missions to support Bedford and Norwegian FF.

Mike

[HalfLifeExpert]

I've got a couple more pieces of feedback for this scenario:

1) I've encountered some major slowdowns in this scenario after running fast time compression that should be investigated.

2) I absolutely love the fact that the first ship sighting report results in a reference point being automatically placed on the map, but a second reference point does not appear on the map for the first periscope sighting. It's difficult to use the Latitude-Longitude layer that far north because it doesn't label Latitude number that far north.

[HalfLifeExpert]

I've completed my first playthrough, but didn't win.

I effectively followed my orders. Found the Sub, stayed on top of it, banging away with active sonar.

When the clock had 5 minutes left in it, I fired ASROCs, which sank the sub. That wasn't enough to get the "Pass" score for Campaign purposes.

For those players who haven't seen the film, there's no reason to consider firing on the Submarine. Isn't there supposed to be some kind of scenario event or something to incentivize firing on the Sub and starting a skirmish?

[DeHav]

A pair of Fitters attacked the Bedford on my playthrough - It took some damage but was still floating. I sunk the sub and its tender then the scenario ended.

Odd that it didn’t happen to you…

[cdnice]

Ditto for me. Enjoyed it very much.

[HalfLifeExpert]

Interesting that the Fitters never went after me. I never even saw them in the air, just Mail MPAs.

[BlitzimX]

I also "finished" the scenario, but by running out of time. Not sure what i'm doing wrong but I never found any sub, despite banging away with my Orions, and looking for it. I met ennemy intelligence boats casualy strolling around, the RV ship, multiple aircraft on top, but after the 2 original sighting, absolutly nothing happened for the rest of the day. Am i missing a trigger or something?

[cdnice]

Maybe you need to find the sub in order to trigger the other events. I did not find it the first time I ran the scenario, second time all was well.

[gkenny]

I also played through this scenario yesterday, and I also noticed heavy slowdowns at faster time compression which didn't resolve itself by just reducing back to normal speed, I had to end up restarting my game. Probably something to investigate.

[HalfLifeExpert]

Played another attempt with the beta patch installed. No slowdowns at all!

Also events seemed to work as intended. I failed to find the sub on two attempts, found it on the 3rd. This time the Fitters did attack Bedford, ultimately causing engine damage.

Sank the Sub, shot down two Fencers and One Mail. Sank the Novosibirsk.

I don't know, I think sinking the Sub should be enough to pass for campaign purposes.

[1nutworld]

ORIGINAL: BlitzimX

I also "finished" the scenario, but by running out of time. Not sure what i'm doing wrong but I never found any sub, despite banging away with my Orions, and looking for it. I met ennemy intelligence boats casualy strolling around, the RV ship, multiple aircraft on top, but after the 2 original sighting, absolutly nothing happened for the rest of the day. Am i missing a trigger or something?

I am within 26 hours of mission end and I too haven't had any submarine contacts, and only one Goblin that turned out to be Biologics.

At this point in the game for me, the Bedford has now found a "suicidal" Soviet AGI, that has closed to within 0.1 NM of the Bedford and is following the same course as USS Bedford, for multiple saves.....on my game.

[1nutworld]

Screen Capture of Red Tide Mission #1

Soviet AGI "following" Bedford

[CommandPB]

ORIGINAL: 1nutworld

ORIGINAL: BlitzimX

I also "finished" the scenario, but by running out of time. Not sure what i'm doing wrong but I never found any sub, despite banging away with my Orions, and looking for it. I met ennemy intelligence boats casualy strolling around, the RV ship, multiple aircraft on top, but after the 2 original sighting, absolutly nothing happened for the rest of the day. Am i missing a trigger or something?

I am within 26 hours of mission end and I too haven't had any submarine contacts, and only one Goblin that turned out to be Biologics.

At this point in the game for me, the Bedford has now found a "suicidal" Soviet AGI, that has closed to within 0.1 NM of the Bedford and is following the same course as USS Bedford, for multiple saves.....on my game.

That is exactly what AGIs did in the Cold War " hang off your back end"

[1nutworld]

ORIGINAL: CommandPB

ORIGINAL: 1nutworld

ORIGINAL: BlitzimX

I also "finished" the scenario, but by running out of time. Not sure what i'm doing wrong but I never found any sub, despite banging away with my Orions, and looking for it. I met ennemy intelligence boats casualy strolling around, the RV ship, multiple aircraft on top, but after the 2 original sighting, absolutly nothing happened for the rest of the day. Am i missing a trigger or something?

I am within 26 hours of mission end and I too haven't had any submarine contacts, and only one Goblin that turned out to be Biologics.

At this point in the game for me, the Bedford has now found a "suicidal" Soviet AGI, that has closed to within 0.1 NM of the Bedford and is following the same course as USS Bedford, for multiple saves.....on my game.

That is exactly what AGIs did in the Cold War " hang off your back end"

I'm familiar, as I was on the Ike in the 90's and we had AGI's tailing us numerous times, but not even those AGI skippers were doing so at 400 meters, lol

[CommandPB]

ORIGINAL: 1nutworld

ORIGINAL: CommandPB

ORIGINAL: 1nutworld





I am within 26 hours of mission end and I too haven't had any submarine contacts, and only one Goblin that turned out to be Biologics.

At this point in the game for me, the Bedford has now found a "suicidal" Soviet AGI, that has closed to within 0.1 NM of the Bedford and is following the same course as USS Bedford, for multiple saves.....on my game.

That is exactly what AGIs did in the Cold War " hang off your back end"

I'm familiar, as I was on the Ike in the 90's and we had AGI's tailing us numerous times, but not even those AGI skippers were doing so at 400 meters, lol

Yeah know the feeling I served on Frigates most of my Career, got real close to a Krivak off Oman in the early 90's

[1nutworld]

Have to admit I am curious how locating report #1 is listed as 78-41N but appears north of 79N gridline instead of south.

Sorry if I am being way too nitpicky.

[rmwilsonjr]

I've played through twice now. Found the sub the first time and razzed it until time ran out, did not find it in the second. In neither case did the Fritters attack, although in the first after locating the sub, an event was listed in the message log about Fritter attacks, but they never did.

[nico71]

Found the sub, banged away with sonar and it came to the surface, time eventually ran out. Nothing else happened.

[Eggstor]

Some notes from my campaign playthrough of The Bedford Incident, using the .34 beta, so there were no slowdowns (spoiler alerts):

- First things first, I turned off the sonars on the Bedford and the Narvik, turned off the no-cavitation option and turned on sprint/drift. I also switched the ASW-only P-3 loadout at Banak to the Harpoon/Mk-46 mix the airborne P-3 and the other P-3 at Banak had.
- At the appropriate times, I got the two contact messages, but only the first RP was auto-placed.
- Shortly after the second contact message was received, the airborne P-3 (under manual control) ID'd a fishing boat, the (southern) AGI, and the tender (the last conveniently near the first contact point). I set up a manual search pattern for the P-3 between the tender and the alleged sub contact point, sent the Bedford on a sprint-drift course toward the tender, and sent the Narvik toward the southern AGI. I turned on a surface search radar on the Bedford and the Narvik, as well as an air search radar on the Bedford.
- Shortly thereafter, I detected a submerged contact near the sub contact point, which auto-turned unfriendly when I ID'd it as biologics (though not as the side "Biologic"). Manually marking it as neutral didn't take until I turned off the exclusion zone, and only much later did I finally ID it as a school of fish belonging to the side "Biologic".
- The Soviet Mails would come and go, swooping down to ID my ships as each new flight would come into the area. As the airborne P-3 would hit bingo fuel, I would manually set up the patrol for the next one. It also meant that I would temporarily lose the Soviet contacts until the Narvik got into radar range of the AGI.
- With about 8 hours to go, one of the sonobouys finally picked up and ID'd a SSB (eventually classified as a Golf II), and I got new orders to track the sub and sink it as well as any other Soviet forces should they decide to attack. As the detecting sonobouy had a fair amount of life left and the airborne P-3 had just enough gas to make one swing north, I decided to send the P-3 north to do a surface sweep and launch another P-3 to mind the sub. I also started to rush the Bedford back east toward the sub, and launched another P-3 to keep airborne tabs on the sub. Spoiler - at this point, the Soviet attitude toward NATO switches from unfriendly to hostile, though it needs to know where NATO is to attack, and the Fitters only have a 350-nm attack radius.
- The northern P-3 quickly detected a couple of new surface contacts, and when it ID'd the northern AGI, that Soviet decided to take a potshot, damaging the VHF radio. Per the updated orders, I declared weapons-free at that point, pumped Penguins into the southern AGI and a Harpoon into the northern AGI once the P-3 got as sufficient distance away for 2 sunken Red Fleet ships (but no points).
- I then sent the northern P-3 at the tender, and finished it off with the other 3 Harpoons for some victory points. The Soviets sent a fresh Mail at the Bedford as the previous one returned to base, which ate a SM-2 upon identification for some more VP.
- I couldn't localize the Golf to within the 0.4-nm requirement to directly attack it with the P-3, so I BOL-launched a Mk-46 to where I thought it should be. The torpedo didn't acquire the Golf, but it did get it moving fast enough for the sonobouys to get a good location. A second Mk-46 got enough for the Golf to stop dead in the water, but not surface. A third Mk-46 (which needed to be launched BOL because I couldn't localize the sub) also missed, but a 4th (also launched BOL) finished it off.
- At that point, I had enough VPs to move on, but the message "congratulating" me on kicking off WWIII, which presumably should have fired as part of the NATO Victory trigger that also ends the scenario for standalone play, didn't fire as it isn't an action of that trigger.
- I decided to go through to the timed end, and the Soviets sent more Mails and a pair of attack aircraft, all dispatched by the Bedford to pad the VP score. I did assume the attack aircraft were targeting the Bedford when they adopted an attack profile, so I shot them before they could attack me.