Sh3.exe and Asdic in shallow waters

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by HW3

I've actually made it to the end of the war in GWX but, it sure wasn't easy.

Same here and I suspect a good many others.

[Stiebler]

LGN1 said:

I'm reluctant to change any sensor parameter without proper testing and understanding of the relationship between this parameter and the other.

As long as one does not know the real effect of varying the MiniumumSurface value, I think a better solution would be to randomly set the max. height parameter of the ASDIC sensor depending on the water depth. This would be a much better 'controllable' approach.

So far as I am aware, the only result of changing the minimum surface area is to change the ease with which the target is acquired by asdic. You may be right, that a value of 0.0 will be replaced internally by a default value; it certainly happens for one of the U-boat mass measurements, I forget which.

However, it is impractical to use maximum heights of sensors because they can vary. Remember that the name of the sensor is not associated with the data, therefore it is essential to tag the asdic minimum surfaces with some unique value. (0.0 is not unique here, incidentally.)

I've done a lot of testing with current asdic sensor values today, and they seem to be quite good. In shallow water (<50m deep), the escorts can still locate a VII U-boat with minimum surface=300, although they lose contact fairly quickly. But that is what we want.

Another factor is that probably the tiny type XXIII will NOT be located by asdic in shallow water. And that is correct too (more or less).

Stiebler.

[makman94]

Originally Posted by reaper7

Wow Steibler that is amazing. I would definitely be Interested in this for U-Boot_HAHD.
This would suit perfectly the TypeII as they are perfect boats for in the shallow's which we are basing our first Release on.
I'll get Makman94 to talk to on this matter as hes currently looking into sensors for our Mod.


EDIT: Hi Mate sent you a PM on this Would be happy to test

i will fully gladly help Stiebler (if he want or need any help-tests) as much i can in sensors part becuase i believe that correct working sensors is the number one in list for having a 'realistic' gameplay (as far we can achieve )

@Stiebler : Excellent idea the asdic in shallow waters !!! as long as you are in this part in .exe ...please have a look at the 'vampire nights' issue (own crew has very large visual ranges during nights .tweaks at light factors at sim.cfg and sensors.cfg doesn't 'help' much to 'beat' this). so , i believe that a selective sensors project (meaning the game 'reads' other visuals during afternoon and other during deep night ) will solve the issue and will be an 'evolution' at final gameplay. if you have the will ...just have a look at it,i believe that it worths the effort !

bye

[Rubini]

Originally Posted by makman94

i will fully gladly help Stiebler (if he want or need any help-tests) as much i can in sensors part becuase i believe that correct working sensors is the number one in list for having a 'realistic' gameplay (as far we can achieve )

@Stiebler : Excellent idea the asdic in shallow waters !!! as long as you are in this part in .exe ...please have a look at the 'vampire nights' issue (own crew has very large visual ranges during nights .tweaks at light factors at sim.cfg and sensors.cfg doesn't 'help' much to 'beat' this). so , i believe that a selective sensors project (meaning the game 'reads' other visuals during afternoon and other during deep night ) will solve the issue and will be an 'evolution' at final gameplay. if you have the will ...just have a look at it,i believe that it worths the effort !

bye

I seconded that. Fully agrre with makman94. A tweek/fix on visual sensors is a must have, a real necessity for sh3. We already have gone so far in mods but that vampire nigth view is yet a total immersion killer and irrealistic.

Now, coming back to the main issue here, great work Stiebler! Looking forward to this new mod. PM me if you yet need beta testers.

[LGN1]

Thanks a lot for the reply, Stiebler!

If one has to touch the AI_sensor.dat anyway, one could enter values for maxheight that would allow an identification

Anyway, while thinking about it, I remembered that for some sensors the value from the sim.cfg file is used if the value is 0. For sonar this is 100 m^2 in GWX. However, the other sonar parameters differ from NYGM, so it's important for those not using your mod with NYGM to (maybe) adjust the value.

Regards, LGN1

[reaper7]

This is going to be another great addition to Sh3

Were sensor ranges effected by weather in real life, if so maybe its possible to do similar to h.sie WIP Torpedo duds fix by applying decreasing range by waveheight
And also as mentioned above with the Vampire Vision of players U-Boat (Sensors.dat) and the AI Visuals (AI_Sensors.dat) could these be decreased as light levels dropped.
So there would be different values applied to Visual sensor for Dawn, Day, Dusk, Night and possibly Fogy conditions.

Any changes required to files for your Mod to work, will be Included with the U-Boot_HAD Mod to maintain compatibility with your work

[Rhodes]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Same here and I suspect a good many others.

Ideed! I love the idea since normally I tend to patrolling the UK waters for realism/immersion and got mix results like, a few times I detect the destroyers but they pass and do not find me. If one manages to detect me, there is no way to escape it, plus the shallow water= kaput!

[Fish In The Water]

Originally Posted by LGN1

Well, maybe SH3 takes some default value if the variable is set to zero As long as we do not fully know how the value enters the detection algorithm it's useless to speculate about the value of the variable.

I hope you're right. Otherwise, on the 'surface' it doesn't look good.

[Stiebler]

I was sufficiently interested in whether GWX substitutes a 0.0 Minimum Surface contact area by default with another value, that I checked it.

I ran single mission Convoy PA69, set in 23 Feb 1944. A quick check on the mission file showed two escorts, both of type COBathhurst. Another check in the Sea folder for COBathurst (.sns file) shows that they have asdics 147A fitted in February 1944.

Then I checked through my code intercepts while running the single mission. Sure enough, in the code-subroutine where the original stored values from AI_Sensors.dat are moved into the asdic memory area for each warship as it is spawned, I could detect the distinctive data (ie, Minimum Range all the way down to Minimum Surface) for the GWX 147A asdic, as listed in the GWX AI_sensors.dat file.

The Minimum Surface value was still 0.0 at the point of transfer. So this really must be the value used.

Does this information change the views of any GWX players for the Minimum Surface values that I intend my asdic mod to install according to sea-depth?

Stiebler.

[Stiebler]

For those interested in day/night modification of the visual sensors:

I have passed on the relevant code information to Reaper7, who wishes to explore this issue further, and also to H.sie.

In my opinion, the combination of visual sensors (U-boat/enemy) is already good in NYGM, so I have no interest in developing a new mod myself. The sensors for NYGM were created by Observer a long time ago. Observer was/is a real-life American ex-submariner.

Stiebler.

[Rubini]

Originally Posted by Stiebler

For those interested in day/night modification of the visual sensors:

I have passed on the relevant code information to Reaper7, who wishes to explore this issue further, and also to H.sie.

In my opinion, the combination of visual sensors (U-boat/enemy) is already good in NYGM, so I have no interest in developing a new mod myself. The sensors for NYGM were created by Observer a long time ago. Observer was/is a real-life American ex-submariner.

Stiebler.

Hi Stiebler,

So, you don´t have vampire night view (uboat crew) on NYGM? I know that NYGM have different visual sensors for AI ships but uses the same (stock) for uboat crew. The settings for visual uboat crew sensors are in Sensors.dat and in the Sensors.cfg as you know.

Isn´t possible to correctly adjusted the vampire night uboat crew using neither the Sensors.dat or sensors.cfg without messing with day visual sensitivity and so on. This is an old well knowing issue that never was fixed.

Probably NYGM (as it is in GWX) just have a heavy settings on the light settings but this is for sure messing with day and (even worse) evening/dusk sensibility too. This was too tested a lot some years ago and nobody found a real magic setting that solve the problem. When you raise these settings your crew continues to make visual detections at maximum range, just delayed a bit more, but as it is random, not so rarely it detects at 16km at night!!

Since the 16km mod this annoyance is much more noticiable (in 8km isn´t that bad). What the big mods did was then try a compromisse between settings on the above files, visual section, but this is far from good or realistic.

If you have the time try a second look on the matter, testing the max/usual visual detections by the uboat crew in game at day, dusk and night. You will see that at night the crew can visual detect ships at much more high distance than it will be plausive. (to not say a totally irrealistic).

Well, i´m here only trying to atract your attention and, perhaps, the desire to work on this issue , but obviously I/we can understand and I agree that we/you/anyone just want to work at first on issues (mods) that are interesting for ourselfs...sh3 is an endless work for modders, you know.

[Rubini]

Sorry to insist on the matter, hopes that for a good cause.

To make a mod for visual detection issue is probably just a matter (but I don´t have any thin idea on how to make it or the probably hard time to make it) to find the sensor visual max distance memory location (as you did for asdic) and if the enviroment is day left it as is, if is dusk cut it to 2/3, if night just cut it to a 1/2 or 1/3. Perhaps could be also need to make it to Ai visual sensors ... (but Ai visual sensors at night is already more responsible on sim.cfg/Ai_sensors.dat than the uboat crew ones).

Excuse me again to stay on this matter.

Cheers mate!

[h.sie]

@Rubini: Since Stiebler isn't interested: I already offered makman via PM some days ago, that I'll look into the vampire night sensor issue, since I already "hacked" the visual sensors for the VIIF wolfs. But for this big project, I need time and energy. If it's me to do the job, patience is needed. But I don't want to hinder others to start to play with the sensors.

[Rubini]

Originally Posted by h.sie

@Rubini: Since Stiebler isn't interested: I already offered makman via PM some days ago, that I'll look into the vampire night sensor issue, since I already "hacked" the visual sensors for the VIIF wolfs. But for this big project, I need time and energy. If it's me to do the job, patience is needed. But I don't want to hinder others to start to play with the sensors.

Hi h.sie,

Thanks to look on this.
We have all the time mate!

The truth is that we (i can for sure speak for a lot of ppl here on the followed matter) like very much and we are very thankfull on what you and Stiebler have done, you both knows that.

And we also know (because a lot of us are also modders...well at this time probably any sh3 player already made at least one tiny mod!) that any mod work is a very time consuming task and that the main and primary ingredient is ourself motivation.

Every time that i write something here I spent a lot of time reading my post to try to not be so much that type "please do this, please to that" because I know how hard is this work (and believe me, with my english limitations is yet more hard to express myself). So, like I said, excuse us if sometimes seems (just seems!) that this entire community are now over you both!

[Fish In The Water]

Originally Posted by Stiebler

I was sufficiently interested in whether GWX substitutes a 0.0 Minimum Surface contact area by default with another value, that I checked it...

The Minimum Surface value was still 0.0 at the point of transfer. So this really must be the value used.

Does this information change the views of any GWX players for the Minimum Surface values that I intend my asdic mod to install according to sea-depth?

Very interesting findings...

Before I answer your question, I feel I should provide a bit of background to set the proper context. I'm a long time GWX player who has a love/hate relationship with the mod. Yes I said 'hate,' but not in the classic sense as my criticism doesn't come from a place of malice or spite but rather from a desire to see it better.

On the one hand I think certain parts of GWX are absolutely wonderful, whereas a few others I find quite appalling. That being said, the good far outweighs the bad and so I continue to play.

All of which brings us to your question. If your findings are correct, then I would have to place this in the 'appalling' category. I say this as an individual who has long enjoyed 'realistic' sims as opposed to what I would call uber AI sims.

Speaking in general terms, if the goal is to emulate the historic conditions of the Battle of the Atlantic then I would say the player should be given about a 25% chance to survive. This strikes me as both eminently fair and realistic.

This being the case, one has to ask why the perception (as you indicated in your previous post) that hardly anyone ever makes it to '44 or '45 in GWX? (And I'm not debating whether this perception is real or not, merely that it strongly exists in many people's minds).

That being said, in my mind, a minimum surface contact area of 0.0 in no way reflects what could be termed 'realistic' in any sense of the word. As much as I enjoy (and continue to play GWX), I have to be honest and call this a regrettable instance of uber AI-ism.

I would hope your mod will more accurately reflect a reasonable surface area to be contacted as a prerequisite prior to detection.