Contact not showing up on map
 

I have all THEBERBSTERS megamods installed and working... (apparently).

I got a "merchant"contact. Sonar man gave bearing and direction only. Ex. "contact 002 moving away." Would never give distance to contact. When I asked for distance from sonar it would only say "no contact selected." Contact also never showed up on map.

I turned to heading and chased it down. Same results in reporting. Contact never showed on map. I was surfaced awaiting more contact info. Contact finally showed up as a blue ship icon when I was only a few hundred yards away.

I get that he's an ally. But why no distance to contact and why it's not an icon on the map so I can plot a course to it?

Sonar contacts are basically unknown, so are not plotted on the map, other than the little blue line you see. Once radar or visual is established, then you'll "see" the icon in GFO. "Map Contacts" in the Gameplay settings page influences this behavior. If you're underwater, periscope not up, no visual, so no icon. With the periscope up, you'll have limited range, since you're closer to the horizon line. You can see further on the surface (naturally), but fog, rain, and darkness affect things. What were your circumstances, and what is your mod list?

As for "pinging" a contact, you'll have to point the sonar head at the bearing yourself and do the ping. If you just go to the sonar station and ping, while the sonarman just said "Bearing 002, Long range!", the head might be pointing at 238 when you get to the station, and when you "ping", you just go out into empty sea. You'd have to either look in the documentation for the mod or in the Stock game's pdf for how to aim the head. In FotRSU, you can use the mouse wheel to rotate the head, but other mods, it takes a key press. GFO doesn't change the key assignments by default, so you can consult the "SH4_Q-Ref_Card_Back.jpg" and "SH4_Q-Ref_Card_Front.jpg" pictures for the game's key assignments, though I don't see any for rotating the sonar. There is a lever on the right side of the station's display that can be used to rotate the head, and there's a little marker in that circle by it that indicates the bearing it's pointing to. The irritating thing about the game's sonar is that you can spend all sorts of time rotating the head to a given bearing, "ping", get nothing, and then think that you need an updated bearing, so you leave the station and look at the chart. Go back to the sonar station, and the head is once again pointed somewhere that has no relation to where you just "pinged". So you start all over again... :wah:

I don't understand why I get contacts reported "long range" with a red square plotted, direction of travel, estimated speed (slow, med, etc), ship and they're so far off I can't catch them.

But they're are screws ringing pretty loud in the sonar and it's locked onto him apparently. every time i come back to sonar the green light is on and the screws are loud. I can grab the "sonar wheel" with my mouse and swing it around to find him. Then I click on "continual report" and he keeps calling out bearings but no distances.

And when I click the indicator, it pings and completes one ratation, then I ask for distance and all it says is "no target selected." And still no map update. How do you plot an intercept course (as i've seen on youtube from MILES away, if you have to chase them down to visual range?

My sub has "air radar" but no "surface radar." Do I need a newer sub?

I guess my main question is why do some plot and some don't? What's the difference?

Thanks for you help, propbeanie!

In the Stock version of the game, you will get a ~lot~ of "Contact Reports". There is a setting in each group or ship that the game generates, to control how often, if at all that the unit will be reported on, and how long it will take for it to do so. For the most part, it's an exercise in frustration to try to track them down. However, they do give you an idea of where the known traffic lanes are. Unless something is rather close to you, there really isn't any sense in chasing "rabbits", because they do not keep the same course all the way across the ocean. Consider the reports as one of the game's attempt at "immersion", with the report coming across the radio from "Ultra", and your crew "plotting" them on the map for you.

In the meantime, sonar is difficult to plot or target with. It can be done, but you'll need to make multiple readings at evenly timed intervals (5-10 minutes apart) and "chart" them on the map (draw a line from your sub along the hydrophone's line). From that, you can somewhat get a general direction of travel, based upon the distance traveled on your map against the reported "speed" (Slow, Medium, Fast). I cannot recall those speeds' amount, so someone else would have to post with them...

However, you don't really know the distance, and the game will at times give you a sonar contact miles and miles away. When they say "Long Range", that means over 5,000 yards, but it might be 35nm also... Consider those long distances a "simulation" of the transduction of sound waves, and the clarity of the water you're in. More immersion... :roll: It can take a long time to catch a potential target with hydrophone readings (besides possibly burning all your reserve fuel). As for using active sonar ("pinging"), there is a limit to how far out that will reach, even if you are accurate with the line you send the ping on. I do not recall it's maximum range, or if it's even notated anywhere.

Patience is key though, and it can be an exercise in frustration (I'm worn-out from all of this "exercising" stuff) to discover that the "target" you've been chasing / tracking for the last few hours is nothing more than a couple of sub-chasers with multiple sidethowers each, just "baiting" you for an attack... :o

You could try
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b1EZl4agxo

which is found in Rockin Robbin's Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks :salute:

The very far off reports are position reports that are intercepted, decoded, and sent out to subs in the area. Extend the tail line, guestimate their speed, and see if you can intercept them. Slow would be about 5 knots, Medium could be 8 - 10 knots, and Fast would be above that. Note the time listed in the report when you click on it and calculate from there. I use the compass to plot approx how far they will go along the reported (tail) course line and also plot what course & speed I need to take to see if it is possible to intercept them. I've intercepted many of these 24 hours +/- after receiving the Ultra position report on the map.

I use a similar method on the close red reports.

Radar - you can turn off the surface SJ A-Scope & PPI radar to stop the surface reports when you're nearing your base but you can not turn off the SD air search radar reports. If you are close to your Home Port like Pearl or Midway, these are friendly air contacts.

Happy Hunting!

Thanks for the replies. Got it.

I think part of my problem is a graphics problem. I've installed all the THEBERBSTERS megamods and everything seems to be working well except ONE PROBLEM

In the SONAR room, I am WAY too close to the instruments. I need to back off in order to use them properly. (They need to be smaller). Views on everything else are fine tho, although the three gauges in the lower right are so large they overlap.

Suggestions for that?

Thanks again.

When you played Stock before installing any mods what did you think of the Sonar and Radar station views?

I think the camera being too close to the Sonar station has to do with a file called cameras.dat. As a test you could try replacing the modded cameras.dat file with the Stock file.

You could lose any free camera use on the bridge and maybe other views but you might like it better. Also, if the mod corrects the outside or periscope views to the real world & zoom views you would also lose that. It's a trade-off.

The three HUD gauges being so large is another mod that must have been included in the larger mod. Maybe in the Mod's Readme it might tell how to disable the extra large gauges. I prefer the regular gauge size too with the one gauge I'm using temporarily getting big while I set it.

Here's my little comparison of the default views in GFO (left), Stock (center) and FotRSU (right) in a Gato boat:

https://i.imgur.com/psWHwBd.jpg

I actually like the GFO view, other than once you click on the screen to move the view, it does go a little fast. Do you have MaxOptics IV for GFO installed?... :salute:

Yeah the view was the problem. The sonar room had me SO close to the views that they were not usable.

I removed the GFO mod and a couple of others which were causing it and it's fine now. Basically install a mod, check to see if it was still ok. Install another mod, check to see if it was still ok.

It was strange which ones were conflicting. I'm sure it's probably because of conflicts with my laptop and windows 10. But I have a widescreen and managed to get running "non-windowed." So I'm happy with it now. I've got the tool upgrades and the sonar "works" now.

My sonar looked worse than yours. Both scopes would not fit in the same frame. And the distance report would not work at all.

All debugged and happy now though. Thanks everyone for the help!!

I had to run one of my laptops with a "Windowed" SH4 (old HP, strange HD display), but the other two I've tried it on, no issues, so long as you find what the "Native" resolution of the display is, set Windows to that, and the game to that also. Don't forget that you have to exit out of the game and then start it up again in order to see display setting changes. If the game doesn't have a matching resolution, then you would have to do "Windowed"... :salute: