[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Capn, what are your thoughts on sensors and airplanes? What kind of changes do you have in mind and why? All that will be in the readme and in the thread when we actually do the [REL] thread.

My attention has been towards the subs sensors.......Radar, Hydrophone/Sonar, Visual. As has already been included, a readable radar that actually tells you something. The stock radar couldn't give you accurate range with either A-Scope or PPI screens. With blips as big as your thumb, you couldn't get much out of the Bearing direction either.

With the knowledge of gathering data about the sensor equipment from WWII I've put into practice the following:

Early SD (Air Search Radar) 9nm-12nm maximum
Late SD 12nm-16nm maximum

Early SJ (Surface Search Radar) 6nm-8.5nm max
Late SJ 12nm-15nm max

Hydrophone (Passive Sonar) 7.5nm-10nm maximum
with a loss in reliability if your traveling above 5 knts.

Sonar (Active Sonar) less than 5nm maximum

These figures are based on documentations from several sources, with the emphasis on "reliability" not just maximum distance. It was said that a German U-Boat once picked up a convoy at 50 miles distance. That's fine in the right conditions, but I want what the average "reliable" distance was for detection. I once picked up my home town AM station after midnight 900 miles away!! But, that was just an example of frequency "skip", not a product of reliable reception.

The subs visual parameters seem to be a bit off. I've got a test mission with 20 plus ships positioned around a sub. The farthest ship I can see through binoculars is about 4.5nm away. The ships beyond are just hazed over. On a clear day, you should see more than 4.5 nm. At 20 ft above the water, the horizon is only 7nm away. A ship should be seen even beyond the horizon.

As far as the crew, that's yet to be determined. There's no way they should be able to see ships, if I can't. My plan of testing the crew visuals is to remove all other sensors from the game and rely solely on the visuals. As a matter of fact that's how you test the other sensors. You remove all but the one you wish to test.

The FOTRS AI sensors will be left alone. Unless someone notices a huge issue, I'm not touching them. Not that I think their spot on, I'm just not going there.

=============

The airplanes are getting several new additions. For now, I'm only going to bring up the two that I've developed. A Kamikaze single engine Zero, and the Kamikaze Baka jet plane carried by a G4M Betty.



This plane will approach like all others, yet will dive directly onto its target creating massive damage.









The G4M Betty Baka:



It will be released over the target with the same result:






Men......it's time to take a swim!!





These two Kamikaze planes will be seen at the start of 1945, until war's end. The Betty Baka coming from land bases, the Zero flying off of carriers.

[max-peck]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

With the knowledge of gathering data about the sensor equipment from WWII I've put into practice the following:

Early SD (Air Search Radar) 9nm-12nm maximum
Late SD 12nm-16nm maximum

Early SJ (Surface Search Radar) 6nm-8.5nm max
Late SJ 12nm-15nm max

Hydrophone (Passive Sonar) 7.5nm-10nm maximum
with a loss in reliability if your traveling above 5 knts.

Sonar (Active Sonar) less than 5nm maximum

Good work - thanks Capn

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

These two Kamikaze planes will be seen at the start of 1945, until war's end. The Betty Baka coming from land bases, the Zero flying off of carriers.

Bloody outstanding

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

With the knowledge of gathering data about the sensor equipment from WWII I've put into practice the following:

Early SD (Air Search Radar) 9nm-12nm maximum
Late SD 12nm-16nm maximum

Early SJ (Surface Search Radar) 6nm-8.5nm max
Late SJ 12nm-15nm max

Hydrophone (Passive Sonar) 7.5nm-10nm maximum
with a loss in reliability if your traveling above 5 knts.

Sonar (Active Sonar) less than 5nm maximum

These figures are based on documentations from several sources, with the emphasis on "reliability" not just maximum distance.


These two Kamikaze planes will be seen at the start of 1945, until war's end. The Betty Baka coming from land bases, the Zero flying off of carriers.

Okay, we're going to basically cut stock ranges hydrophone and SJ radar about in half. We need to marshal some links to those sources. We're going to be assaulted like nobody's seen since Beery's deck gun, which could pull off a shot every 30 seconds and which was only slightly more powerful than pointing your finger and shouting "bang!" He cited chapter and verse, but still wasted much time defending his decisions.

Actually, SD is pretty close to the 9-12 nm range now, so that one won't be such a problem. Nobody knows what the range of active sonar is because we don't use it as a search tool.

So basically I'd look for some sources to include in our readme. When people ask pointy questions we just point to the readme and not engage in their gambit. If possible, it would be good to have a plugin to replace stock SJ and hydrophone ranges. We should always refer to our ranges as "normal" SJ and hydrophone ranges.

And face it, we set out to change how Silent Hunter 4 is played. That would do it! And it would partially explain the unrealistic tonnage scores by players.

Think about it. If your SJ search range is 20 nm opposed to 10nm for us, our daily search area falls by 75%! That's 75% less targets developed per unit time of surface radar patrol, assuming that on average your number of targets developed is proportional to the number of square miles of ocean surface searched.

That's a really huge error in the stock game! Time for me to read some patrol reports.

[XTBilly]

Hi people!

What an irony! Now that the finest mod is available, I have not time to breathe, not to play...

I decided to work my vacation days in order to get them in hard cash. While the family are enjoying the Aegean sea at our uncle's house, I'm having a hard time trying to fix and paint a rusty exhaust...

This mod is getting better and better! Yes, RR, PLEASE, put MaxPeck's work in the core. It is more than amazing.

The sinking model will be completed sometime, not soon, but you'll find that it worth the waiting. I promise that.

Cheers Mates!
Billy.

[Rockin Robbins]

Coming soon to FOTRS Ultimate!
XTBilly's Rusty Exhaust Mod!

[propbeanie]

How about the "reliability" of the sensors "system" as a whole, CapnScurvy? I don't think I've ever encountered what I've described previously, where if there are multiple contacts, via multiple "sensors", that only the first is announced by the crew members. The other day, the SJ operator announces several contacts, the bearings and the ranges, one by one. The SD operator *had* to have had a contact shortly thereafter, and I never heard a thing. It couldn't have been long time-wise, and the lookouts should have announced their visual sighting, yet they "said" nothing. It wasn't until I heard the exhaust note of the airplanes engine, coming in for a run, that I realized we had an uninvited guest. This has happened multiple times, in campaigns and single missions...

Is this by chance the game itself, say to where all the ships were at bearing 50-54, long distance, and the plane came from the same area and range, and the "voice" used in the game to announce the air contact, uses the same voice file and says the same thing as the surface dude with "radar contact, bearing five four, long range", and it therefore sounds like the surface guy repeating himself (which he was)? That's all I can figure happens. I'm looking into that angle of it, but I'm not sure how far I'll get with it. The game doesn't "show" the contacts on the chart, if that's where you happen to be when the report comes in, so if you don't look over the shoulder of the radar operators constantly, you get surprised. Especially if the look-outs make no announcement(s), which I have no ideas on that one. TC had been used until the first radar contact, so maybe the look-outs' failure to report has something to do with Sound? Perhaps another instance of the "Radar Contact Sound Issue", with a twist??...

The "enemy's" AI can be turned up and down as need be for difficulty levels, the frequency of air patrols and/or sub hunters can be increased or decreased for the same reason. You could shorten or lengthen the range of radar and sonar also, but in my opinion, you should not lose contact info anywhere at anytime, whether verbally or visually on the chart, unless we'd just want to have a "Solo" setting on difficulty, where the player is the only person on the sub, and has to operate every station for anything to get done. The controls are already there in your interior... - I found out how to blow ballast one day, while trying to click and then turn around in the control room...

[Rockin Robbins]

Okay folks. I slaved away all night on a 1940s manual typewriter and a 7' stack of patrol reports and put together this list of all submarine first contacts from January 1943 to the end of the war. I haven't read past the end of January 1943 yet, but there were only a few radar contacts in the 7.5 mile (15,000 yard) range and none that I found greater than that so far. This link will work for everyone, not just members of the FOTRS Ultimate team.

Actually I got this list from either Tater or Nisgeis (the source is archived here at Subsim, just haven't bird dogged that down) and it's invaluable.

Unfortunately, the poor sap whose work I am stealing credit for spent probably 50 hours on that manual typewriter never thought that we'd be wanting to crunch those numbers on a computer! I plan on boosting the contrast and seeing if OCR can do anything with it. I doubt it. It's difficult to tell a C from an O and other letters are messed up by the dirty type and ribbon on the wartime typewriter. But no guts no glory!

Fallback plan is the old manual scan technique. The letter C is the code for surface radar contact. The very next column is the range of that contact.

[propbeanie]

Where do you pull this info from RR? So timely. It's almost like you have a top-secret, un-credited office staff working in the room with you... Very cool stuff... We definitely need things working correctly in-game by no later than the appearance of CapnScurvy's Super-Devil-Dog Kamikaze attacks. It would not be pleasant to be on the surface, and have a mute look-out watch crew when they come along. I wouldn't just be getting strafed & straddled...

Edit: do you know how big of a file that pdf is supposed to be RR? Does 286mb sound right?...
.

[max-peck]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Edit: do you know how big of a file that pdf is supposed to be RR? Does 286mb sound right?...
.

Yeah - that's right
I have just downloaded it at work
It is this big because it is full of scanned images, rather than typeset text

[cdrsubron7]

This one is an exact match. The Haruna Maru.

Coastal Tanker

[cdrsubron7]

Hey, max. These merchant pictures you took are terrific, they really help with iding the ships.

Bravo Zulu, my friend.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Where do you pull this info from RR? So timely. It's almost like you have a top-secret, un-credited office staff working in the room with you... Very cool stuff... We definitely need things working correctly in-game by no later than the appearance of CapnScurvy's Super-Devil-Dog Kamikaze attacks. It would not be pleasant to be on the surface, and have a mute look-out watch crew when they come along. I wouldn't just be getting strafed & straddled...

Edit: do you know how big of a file that pdf is supposed to be RR? Does 286mb sound right?...
.

Yes, right size there. What a file! Just from what I read, CapnScurvy's ranges look really plausible. Remember, that is EVERY contact reported by ALL SUBS during World War II from January 1943. If they never detected a convoy at 30,000 yards we can be pretty sure they couldn't!

I'm not saying they didn't. I haven't read beyond January 1943 yet. Lots of radar contacts that month. None above about 14,500 yards (7.25 miles).

I can't wait to see a Kamikaze attack from a Baka! They don't attack submarines, do they?

[CapnScurvy]

That's an interesting find there Double R. More on it later.

A good place to look for information on ships of all types is from the Historic Naval Ships Association.

Here, you'll find the Radar Operators Manual If you look for the chapter "Specific Equipment" you'll find both SD and SJ radar headings. On page 4-SD-5 you'll find the heading "Performance", with this as the SD's (Air Search) Reliable Range:

Large planes above 1,000 feet.......12-20nm
Small planes above 1,000 feet.......8-15nm
Low planes......... Not detected

Late war development of the SV Radar (taking the place of SD-1 Air Search improvements), can be found here at the USS Pampanito site:

Maximum reliable range. (miles):
Bombers, at 30,000 ft........7.5
Bombers, at 10,000 ft........10
Fighters, at 10,000 ft.........12
Battleships.......................12.5
Cruisers...........................15
Destroyers.......................10
Submarines, surfaced.........7.5

The "Radar Operators Manual" also lists the SJ (Surface Search) performance on page 4-SJ-9:

Antenna: 33 Feet
Target..........................Maximum Reliable Range in Yards
BB, CV, Large auxiliaries............25,000 to 30,000/12.3nm-14.8nm
CA, CL, Medium auxiliaries..........20,000 to 25,000/9.8nm-12.3nm
DD, DE, DM, AV, PC, CG, etc......15,000 to 18,000/7.4nm-8.8nm

In another document of 1943 called "Operational Characteristics of Radar Classified by Tactical Application, FTP 217" You can get another idea of radar range by looking up either SD or SJ radar.

You may say....."Well, this proves you're all wet Scurvy. You're ranges are too low!!"

My answer......it's been documented that these "performance ranges", even the "reliable" ones are from optimum conditions, and are well above true found ranges. Take a look at this document, the "Radar and Submarine War, 1941-1945: A Reinterpretation" by Robert Dienesch......page 32 should be read carefully regarding SJ radar performance:

An SJ radar working in ideal conditions could detect a single merchant ship at roughly 17,000 yards (8.4nm), and a single warship at 10,500 yards (5.2nm) again, depending on the size of the ships and the weather conditions.

Pay attention to this authors footnote to that statement. His footnote points to another authors book by Norman Friedman, "Submarine Design and Development",.....He states:

The fleet manual listed the reliable range as being 75 per cent of these figures. The size of ships, and weather conditions and the height of the radar detector above the surface, directly affected these ranges. These figures are consistent with reported contact ranges from war patrols.

Cue in Double R's findings in the document "Enemy Contacts by U.S. Submarines, 1943 to End of War". You'll see SJ radar making first contact, on average, to be about 16,000 yards.....some as high as 22,000 yds. One as high as 30,000 by sub SS 304.

In the Hydrophone/Sonar area, there's not much of a definitive performance specifications as there is with Radar. Sound traveling in water is rated more in decibels than in specific range figures. I offer this site "The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia". It states:

Range was also limited, rarely exceeding 3000 yards (2700m) even under the most favorable conditions. Sonar was generally ineffective at speeds over about 10 knots, requiring "sprint and drift" tactics

By far and away, the detection sensor that really has the edge is the visual! The "Enemy Contact" document reports having lookouts regularly detecting at ranges of 30,000 yards plus!! I couldn't help to see a pattern though....... that sub SS 304 that claimed they detected a radar contact at 30,000 yds was regularly finding 40,000 yard targets by its lookouts!?! They weren't the only sub who seemed to find things out at distances a little questionable. On Jan 10, 1944 and again on the 14th, sub SS 197 reported their lookouts spotted ships at 50,000 yards?? Either they had the sharpest crew in the Navy, or someone took a liking to inflating the numbers!?

Anyway, here's why I've got my radar sensors set as they are. And, its worth while to check some others as well.

[cdrsubron7]

By far and away, the detection sensor that really has the edge is the visual! The "Enemy Contact" document reports having lookouts regularly detecting at ranges of 30,000 yards plus!! I couldn't help to see a pattern though....... that sub SS 304 that claimed they detected a radar contact at 30,000 yds was regularly finding 40,000 yard targets by its lookouts!?! They weren't the only sub who seemed to find things out at distances a little questionable. On Jan 10, 1944 and again on the 14th, sub SS 197 reported their lookouts spotted ships at 50,000 yards?? Either they had the sharpest crew in the Navy, or someone took a liking to inflating the numbers!?

There is something that was implemented in SH1 that was never put in SH4. That being the use of the "high periscope". I know that not all sub skippers in the war used it, but there were many that did. One man specifically comes to mind, that being Richard O'Kane in the USS Tang. This might explain the visual sightings of ships at long distances.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

There is something that was implemented in SH1 that was never put in SH4. That being the use of the "high periscope". I know that not all sub skippers in the war used it, but there were many that did. One man specifically come to mind, that being Richard O'Kane in the USS Tang. This might explain the visual sightings of ships at long distances.

I still miss a LOT of gameplay aspects of SH 1, that being the biggest. I still drive around with my scope up while on the surface... sometimes forgetting to put it down on the way down... - the radar functionality being another... :wink:

I do like that "rockin'" video snippet Mr. Robbins... , and CapnScurvy, the sage scribe and keeper of all useful knowledge... The Librarian (and magician).