Well I've just spent most of the day trying to figure the Hydrophone out....the issue at hand is
not hearing a ship when its within easy visible distance from the sub. I'm striking out!!
My tests are to have a warship (a Yubari CL) passing by a stationary sub. I put the same warship, traveling at 4 different speeds around the sub. This warship has a Maximum Speed of 34.8 kts in its .sim file. Here's the view of the Navigation Map, with the four targets showing, their positioning from the Sonarman's report and display on the map:
I've added the 4 targets speed to the map to keep track of which was doing what. All 4 within 3000 yards of the sub. I proceeded to go to the Hydrophone station to listen for myself. As usual, the only target that was audible by listening was the only target that was traveling greater than half its Maximum Speed...the one at the approximate 105 Relative Bearing:
The other three produce nothing to hear by the player. The AI crew hears them and gives you their position (all four are reported upon within the Message Text Box), unless the targets pick up their speed to match at least half the 34.8 max speed....you'll think there's something wrong with the game!!
Well yes, there IS something wrong with the game....but we can't do anything about it!! Least nothing short of making sure no target travels less than half its max speed.
I've looked at every possible angle.....
Data/cfg/
sensors.cfg file
Data/Library/USSubParts/
Sensors_sub_US.sim file
Data/Sea/NCL_Yubari/
NCL_Yubari.dsd file
Data/Sound/
sounds.wav files
Nothing changed. I had those files turned every which way you can....nothing changed. Except I know now how to prevent the AI from doing
their job so well. But nothing different for the player. The only time I was able to hear the other three was when I changed the Maximum Speed to a lower setting. I got the 15kt ship to be heard when the Max Speed went to 28kts. I heard the 10kt target when I dropped the Max Speed to 18.
The only way to have this Hydrophone deafness overcome is to make sure the Mission files don't allow a ship to travel below half its Max Speed found in its .sim file.
Either that or we live with it.