At Wits End...

[RangerJoe]

I've got the game working fine, full screen on my gaming monitor at its highest resolution. Thanks again for all the help! The game runs crazy slow during the computer-generated night air raids, and I can't use the close button on the combat views during this period as well. But as soon as the nighttime raids have completed, the game runs at normal speed.
Like I had indicated at the beginning of this post, I hadn't played the game in probably 8 or 10 years, so my recollections/memory are sketchy at best. I thought in the combat view that the damaged ships showed smoke when hit by enemy ship's guns/torpedoes as well as bomb and torpedo hits by enemy planes or am I just imaging that?
Planning on downloading and reading the manual over again a couple of times to re-learn the games operation. The same stuff I had difficulties with when I played it years ago... industry management, loading troops, difference between strategic and marching, etc. I forgot how much fun this game is.

The ships can show smoke from hits but they can show smoke before that due to accumulated damage. Soon you will be able to tell the amount of damage that the ships has.

It is best to do the Coral Sea scenario and then the Guadalcanal scenario, several times on both sides. Try different things each time to see what works the best for you.

[Suribachi]

I'm not showing smoke/damage at all, I think I remember this being a file download along with maps, planes and ship artwork? Looking for easy to understand instructions on where/how to install some of these, afraid I'll really screw things up. Some of the sites I used to visit, Spookys and Andrew Brown specifically don't appear to be in use anymore. Some of the more recent modifications are just too hard (for me) to understand how to install. Ehhhhhhh... getting old sucks.

[BBfanboy]

If you have the switch -noFire (not sure of the capitalization letter) in your switch string of the shortcut, it will not show the smoke and fire animation. I agree with RJ that seeing the smoke and fires is a good assist in damage assessment. The smoke from system damage over 10 is just a thin stream with no fire at all. Minor fires in the range 1-20 (?) have a thin grey smoke and just a hint of orange at the bottom. Medium fires 20-40?) have some black smoke and significant flame. Fires over 40 (?) are heavy black smoke atop a long streamer of flame. This would show as 'Heavy Fires' in the combat report.

If you got the heavy fires started early in the engagement and added several more significant hits (especially penetrating ones or the 'Fires on main deck' message) you can deduce that the fires will be higher than 50 and there is a higher chance that the ship will burn up. You can increase this chance by interrupting their damage control efforts. Every time one of your air attacks or ship encounters happens, the enemy crew leave their damage control and go to their action station. You can see the damage continuing if no hits are scored by your side but the enemy suffers casualties.

[Suribachi]

Thanks BBfanboy! Great explanation. Removed -noFire from my string.

[RangerJoe]

Fighting fires can also increase the minor (temporary?) flooding to the point where the ship may sink. This is due to the additional water inside the hull from the firefighting activities.