Manual Ship Centered, Accuracy Fix latest releases

[CapnScurvy]

With the release of the Addon 1.5 patch came the playability of a German U-Boat to the Pacific theater. The Addon was priced reasonably but I drew exception to the idea of having to pay for it at all. I was never interested in playing the German side, least ways in the Pacific. To have to pay for a “patch” to the year old “Wolves of the Pacific” game was just about all I could stand from a game that’s been plagued with problems. When the game first came out I began to investigate why so many manual firings were going awry. I found part of the problem was in the game mast heights used to create a firing solution. The mast heights were a mixture of historical accurate figures and just out right “guess that’s good enough” measurements. The point is no one from the game creators spent much time actually checking a known stationary ship distance to what is calculated with the Stadimeter when manually finding range. If they had I’m sure they would have done a better job at correcting the mast heights to accurately give manually found range to target.

Since I’ve been involved with the team effort for Real Fleet Boat, I’ve bought the Addon to keep up with the evolving efforts for RFB’s next release. In doing so I’ve decided to continue my efforts in creating a more accurate game play when manually finding range to target for both the American Fleet Boats and the German U-Boats. Not surprising there were some very inaccurate figures when I checked the Allied ships or the new Addon ships added to the game.

For instance, one of the newest ships introduced with the Addon is the German “Pocket Battleship”. It has a stock mast height of 47 meters. When I checked the manual found range with the Stadimeter at a known distance of 1415 meters, the manually found range to target was 1755 meters with the top of the mast used as a reference point. That’s a difference of 340 meters (or 1115 feet) greater than the actual distance! To bring the manual found range back to the 1415 meter distance the mast height should be only 37.9 meters tall. That’s a difference of a little over 9 meters shorter to make an accurate reading for that distance. The U.S. Baltimore is another example of poor mast height measurement. The stock mast height is 38 meters tall. The actual tested distance to target was 1417 meters. The Stadimeter found range to target reported 1762 meters, again a 345 meter difference. To bring the mast height to a correct solution, removing 7.4 meters of extra height did the trick. These were just a couple of many found to have inaccurate mast heights.

I will tell you that there were some very accurate figures as well. For instance the Black Swan Sloop has an accurate mast height of 27 meters, so does the J class destroyer at 27.6 meters. Again, my point is the ships need to be checked for accuracy. There are plenty of other variables within the game to create missed torpedo firings, my belief is incorrect mast heights should not be one of them.

Today I’ve released my newest versions of Ship Centered, Accuracy Fix (SCAF) 1.4 and 1.5. SCAF 1.4 is compatible with the SH4 patched to 1.4, and SCAF 1.5 compatible to the Addon 1.5. You can find them listed within the original thread here. A description of what is new and added to the two new releases is at this thread post.

Best Regards
CapnScurvy