Mission 4 is a lot less hectic and a lot more interesting. An Alfa escorts an Oscar SSGN. got solution on the Alfa pretty quick, but it was super maneuverable and had to manually control the torp to guide it against the Alfa's head on turn reversal as a last-ditch maneuver. Man-in-the-loop mode all the way till the end.
The Oscar was sneaky and plays cat and mouse using the thermal layer. lost it for a while and found it above the layer. lost it again and found it all the way at the bottom of the ocean, 1000ft deep. Clever AI! But that's far from the end of it.
went for a steep dive, launched the Mk48 @700ft and set Run Deep mode. was tracking the oscar on sonar constantly ofc and it just went for a fast ascend. followed with my Narwhal sub, while activating the torp to pull it up. i feel like an octopus one hand on WASDXEC controlling the sub and the other on Numpad controlling the torp, periodically on the arrow keys rotating the camera - sod the mouse!
not soon after the torpedo acquired the target, sub sonar lost it. the torp apparently was still tracking it but sonar just couldn't see it. even went for active sonar and pinged twice but no joy?! judging on its trajectory i finally figured it: the oscar is on the bloody surface! ballast up a few times and went for the periscope depth, up mast up ESM up radar, there it is enjoying the sea breeze. bwahahaha.
the MK48 tracked true and hit right between the two props. however the Oscar is still alive with a dead engine. it then went for an emergency blow and just stopped dead on the water. own sub was some 14nm away and sent another Mk48. but reckoned the Oscar must be repairing its damage, when the 2nd Mk48 arrives it coulda repaired and dived. so reloaded tube 1 with a UGM-84 Harpoon and....
first sub kill with an anti-ship missile
issue: 2nd Mk48 was still running at this time, i think had this been a campaign mission the player wouldn't be able to leave due to weapons nearby. pretending this was campaign mode i had to delete this torp. since the wire is still intact fastest way was to manually control the torp to hit ocean bottom which i did. but what if the wire had broken?
a "self-destruct" mode or something like that so player doesn't have to wait a long time for it to end would be nice.