Night surface attacks with MEP v6 & GWX no longer possible?
 

I wanted to comment about this on the MEPV6 thread, but its now closed.

I noticed that after enabling the excellent MEP v6 mod and its complement MEPv6 sensors for GWX3 on my GWX3 install, i can no longer do surface attacks at night (early war of course, no enemy radar), because both the freighters and escorts see me when im about 3km out. Before i could comfortably attack on the surface at night at 1.5 - 2.0km from the side without fear of being detected, but no more.

Anyone else experiencing this?

A quick inspection to the sim.cfg file provided with the MEP v6 sensor pack for gwx3, shows that the light factor was decreased from GWX value of 2.0 to 0.85, wich explains why they now see me so well at night.

Not complaining about MEP v6 at all (its simply the best enviroment mod ibe ever seen for sh3), im just curious if this mechanic of denying night surface attacks was intentional, or the result of an error in the sim.cfg file?

Just change it...
 

Well, I don't use MEPv6 and can't answer the questions...but...

You can always change the light factor in the Mod file back to the value used in GWX and see if that gets you back to suitable distances for sighting your boat at night. Just keep track of what changes you make so that you can undo them again if they cause some other unwanted problems...and be sure to do the tweaking when the Mod is disabled.

I've done that many times to tweak many Mods that I use. Since I do a lot of experimenting with various changes to .cgf files in Mods, as well as .sim and .zon values (using S3D), I also keep an "untweaked" original copy of the Mod handy, in case I really screw something up.

Give it a try...good luck.:salute:

Thanks CaptBones, last night i changed the value from 0.8 to GWX default of 2.0, and it seems to work great.
On a clear night with calm sea, they can still see me about 1.5km away, but on one of those very dark nights, with rough sea, i can close up to about 800m-1km undetected. Works better than with stock GWX! :)

So 2.0 seems to be the "magic number"

Another great mod for surface attacks is the decks awash mod. It submerges your sub just enough so that only the conning tower is above the water. I've found my visibility is greatly reduced in this manner. You can do it manually too if you want, just click the depth gauge until you find that happy place. But it's not very good in heavier seas, as the boat will submerge enough to pull the crew back inside.

Indeed! decks awash is a great mod. GWX3 has in included and i use it frequently.
I too find i can come in much closer if im on decks awashed depth.

Speaking of surface attacks, i use the excellent MaGUI mod (widescreen version), i love it! but the one thing i dont like about it, is that its UZO does not have a stadimeter, a graduated reticle, or any means of measuring the range to a ship quickly. It does have a red reticle with numbers, but the numbers are so small i cant read them, and even if i could, i would still have to flip out a calculator to make the calculation, as it requires you to multiply the number on the reticle (with fractions) X the ships mast height X 2.
So i allways end up using the periscope even if attacking from the surface.

I been meaning to try to add a stadimeter to the UZO in MaGUI, but even though ibe successfully made other small mods, i been unable to do this. :(

Why a mod, as you can do it yourself ??? :06:

Tested. A destroyer can spot me only at 900 meters in a clear night + wind speed = 5 m/s !

hi, yes i allready have decks awashed. What i meant to say is that in vanilla sh3 you cannot do decks awashed, you need to make or install a mod to do it, or use one of the supermods that include this feature, like gwx or nygm.

cheers!

With the value changed to 2.0?

Yes.

Default value after clean GWX install for visual light is 5.0. Also GWX's visual sensors use compartment's crew efficiency, but M.E.P. v6 don't.

GWX default parameters

;Visual.
Visual range factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Visual fog factor=1.1 ;[>=0]
Visual light factor=5.0 ;[>=0]
Visual waves factor=0.8 ;[>=0]
Visual speed factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual aspect=0.9 ;[>=0]
Visual enemy speed=0.2 ;[>=0]
Visual noise factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual sensor height factor=0.4 ;[>=0]
Visual already tracking modifier=600 ;[detection probability modifier], most accurate, once a contact is detected it will lose it very hard
Visual decay time=200 ;[>0] already tracking bonus decay, in seconds
Visual uses crew efficiency=true ;[true or false]

Btw I don't see a point in modifying sensors.dat at all. I think I will use MEP only as graphics mod.
~~~
EDIT: actually there is need in modifying Sensors.dat for your watchman so he will be able to detect ships as far as you (and similarly not able to detect in poor conditions). But for my game I use another sensors.dat from awesome Rocket mod for GWX (version for 16km atmosphere) http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=151612

welcome aboard!
 

Thanks, Aktungbby! Love this forum, whenever you search for a specific mod you learn about other great mods which people uses and it's snowballing really fast.

I also use GWX 3.0 with M.E.P. v6 VisualSensors for GWX3 and edited the SIM-cfg to "Light factor=2.0" but enemy merchants normally spot me at around 2,5-3 km in a dark night, even when I m going decks awash. Did I do something wrong?

What do you think fellow submariners? It's frustrating to not be able to pull off a surface attack in 1939/40 because you get spotted at arguably unrealistic distances in a perfectly dark night. What do I have to modify?