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View Full Version : [TEC] Getting aircraft to attack periscopes


tater
06-03-07, 11:49 AM
You always read about subs that are not even surfaced being attacked by aircraft. In game this never happens, certainly not earlier in the war.

I notice that the big planes get radar at some point. I need to test and see if H8Ks after they get radar can/will attack a periscope. It would be interesting if this was possible.

If no tweaking to the visual "sensor" would allow this, my thought was that perhaps it might be faked with an extremely short-ranged radar added to the plane eqp files. It's sole purpose would be to change the detection chances so that the results more closely mimic reality, it would be a "fake" radar.

Make any sense?

Jace11
06-03-07, 12:25 PM
Yup, agreed, ships dont see the scope, planes dont see it either..

One idea...

I wondered whether it was possible to make a new sensor for AI aircraft. it would be a visual sensor like normal, except it is active at a negative depth..

it would have a very short range, say 1 km but once inside that range ...

the sensor height instead of say 0 to 10000 would be about -5 to 10000?

What would happen then.. could it see you just under the surface or at peri-depth

like other visual sensors it would be effected by fog, light waves etc..

tater
06-03-07, 12:36 PM
Good idea!

donut
06-03-07, 01:16 PM
Having spent time served in USCG.air search,& rescue. Seeing a scope @2,000 feet is not possible,if there is no wake,due to same. My contention is perhaps from (stable platform) surface craft @ 1/2 visual range,air craft:less than 1,000ft.only if sub @ flank/full.(IMHO):sunny:If there is any wind ocean is white with foam,(No wake) . .With MK52 gun fire control radar, periscope will not return a pip signal to indicate same. In 1961.

tater
06-03-07, 02:08 PM
Useful. I was thinking some sort of additional "sensor" that we'd make up sepcifically for the task. We can set the range to X meters, that doesn't matter as long as it's realistic. I don;t want to always get spotted, it'd be nice to worry about it, though.

I do know that from rereading Blair, it seems to have happened fairly often.

Water clarity/depth might have something to do with it as well. In shallows, the sub might stand out vs light sandy bottom in clear pacific water. I was on Kauai a month ago, and you could read a newpaper at the bottom if you dropped it off the boat.

leovampire
06-03-07, 03:26 PM
I like having to dive and hide from planes it actualy gives me a reason to dive other than on an attack from me but having them detect my scope once I am down no F---King Way.

I haited that about SHIII could be going along at time compression and sudenly getting hit by plane bombs because I didn't notice the stealth meter went red. The Radar was way too sensitive in that game for the planes. Use to piss me off big time.

And seeing in this game there is no quick way to get to home base it would make things worse in that respect.

Jace11
06-03-07, 03:43 PM
well i am concerned about the scopes, but aircraft should and could be able to see a boat at peri-depth in the right conditions

donut
06-03-07, 03:44 PM
I do know that from rereading Blair, it seems to have happened fairly often.

Water clarity/depth might have something to do with it as well. In shallows, the sub might stand out vs light sandy bottom in clear pacific water. I was on Kauai a month ago, and you could read a newspaper at the bottom if you dropped it off the boat.
Now you have the real detection from the air,MK 2 eye ball.:up: Shallow ! This would be scary,if implamented.(but fun)!real.

Bando
06-03-07, 04:12 PM
Hello Tater,

I'm still in active naval duty today. I've served some 30 years as a subhunter. Starting as a sonar operator gradually made my way up via helicopter crewmember to chief of the opsroom in an ASW frigate.:p

To spot a feather (wake from a moving subs periscope) is hard when there is a seastate of 4 or more. (about 1 meter waves, little white on top). When the sub does not move in those (or worse conditions) it's virtually impossible to spot a periscope from a ship, unless it's very close. (500 yds or so). In clear weather, a sea like a table, it's obviously a lot easier to spot a periscope, but the sub knows that as well.:damn:

On the other hand, spotting a sub from a helicopter has some very interesting points to it. In the Caraibean sea I've seen subs at 40 meter depth when flying at a curtain angle from the sun and at a certain time of day (meaning the sunrays had to penetrate the water in a certain angle.)

Spotting a periscope in rougher weather was just as hard as it is from a ship.

A submarine can be given away by sea life. I've witnessed (more than once I might @) dolphins in a "V" shaped group in the sea. It looked like a living arrow. When we came flying there and stooped to lower our active sonar about 1000yards in front of that "V" shape we promptly had sonarcontact with high doppler. Mind you, the sub was deep, nevertheless the dolphins gave him away.:yep:

Flying in that helo we had a searchlight sonar, meaning we could sent soundwaves in a 30 degree angle and not all around, just like the early sonars on board warships in the second WW. This means the sonar operator has to be very alert ALL the time. This is a weak spot on every navy craft, for staying at your tops for a prolonged period is hard.
:rock:

Same for the aviators. Flying ours and ours over the ocean looking for a sub, a survivor or life raft is extremely hard to maintain and sooner or later your alertness weakens.

So, looking into the water to see a shallow sub is possible when the weather conditions are right. Seeing a periscope in a body of water without waves is possible. At windforce 3/4, seastates 4 or more it's a lucky shot if you ever see one.

Don't know if it helps, just adding to the subject.:know:

Regards,
Bando

Jace11
06-03-07, 04:18 PM
Yup. Maybe it is fine as is then... was just an idea..

tater
06-03-07, 04:39 PM
Everything helps. I was saying periscope, but really I mean periscope depth.

I have no idea what it should really be like, but I'm rereading Silent Victory, and I just read maybe the 4th attack on a submerged sub (daytime) by aircraft and it's just past Midway, lol. Something spotted them, and this was too early for aircraft with radar for the IJN.

Bando
06-03-07, 04:57 PM
Well, spotting a sub at periscope depth can be easy in clear blue water. Have you ever been to Shanghai and the sea in it's neighborhood?
it's like soup, you won't see anything there. In a clear blue ocean on a sunny day, with not much swell you'll see a sub at periscope depth from quite a distance as a dark spot in the water. Every aviator would investigate that dark spot.

It really depends upon the clearness of the water.
As i recall from memories from long ago, we were calibrating a MAD device (to detect submarines magnatic field) off the coast of vietnam. It's some 20 years ago. I recall the water being brownish (150 NM east of the coast) so nothing could be seen. We got a MADMAN from something, performed some figures of 8 and found a solution. We reeld the MAD bird in and went to hover over our firing solution. It went west to the vietnam coast. After about 5 minutes a submarine (he obviously heard us hovering above) surfaced. It was there in an instant. Never saw him rise up from the deep. It turned out to be an old "F" class submarine from the russians. We waved at eachother and went our seperate ways.........

leovampire
06-03-07, 06:02 PM
they use magnetic fields to detect their food under the sand

vindex
06-05-07, 10:08 PM
I have had ships see my scope, especially destroyers when they are really close, even with my engines off on silent running. It wasn't sonar either, I wasn't getting pinged. I tested it by reloaded and keeping scope down and they didn't see me. But they have to be really close (less than 1000 feet) to see your scope.

I do notice, however, that the scopes don't seem to have wakes like they did in SH3. Could someone mod this?

tater
06-05-07, 10:14 PM
Turns out that in the stock game DDs have radar. It's air search radar but it shares the same bug as the SD and detects ships and periscopes.

I'm still intrigued with this. Perhaps the mod could be a new active sonar that only goes to a depth of 100ft or so, with very very short range.

A similar technique could be used to mod ijn MAD gear. Active sonar, but with no ping sound. Have the distance it detects from the plane set to 100m or something, low enough flying planes could get you submerged.

tater

vindex
06-05-07, 11:10 PM
Stock DD's have radar? That's news to me. I shadow lots of convoys using my radar and the escorts never do anything unless I get within visual range, then they make a beeline right at me.

tater
06-05-07, 11:32 PM
Not right away, but many have this:
[Sensor 9]
NodeName=R01
LinkName=Type13
StartDate=19421001
EndDate=19430901
in their sns file.

That is an air-search set. The problem is that it also seems to detect ships as a bug. It isn't as effective though. Oddly, some people reported always having DDs head right at them, where I have trouble getting them to notice me.

Jace11
06-17-07, 03:50 PM
well i found out why planes and ships dont attack periscopes...

devs nerfed the visual sensors, can fix it two ways...

first reduce surface to real low value in sim.cfg however this has to ben ~10-50 for them to see a scope, while most mods are running it at 150-100. Default SH3 has 400 for the surface factor for visual...

I kinda figured they must have nerfed it elsewhere then...

It is in AI sensors, the AI visual sensor in SH3 has a sensitivity of 0.0000 in SH4 it has been nerfed to 0.300000

I suggest changing it 0.0000 in sh4 this will require re-doing sensors in the sim.cfg again, but GWX settings may work properly now...

Now planes and ships will attack scopes...

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/9792/untitled2cd5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Jace11
06-17-07, 03:52 PM
I need to test to see if this will also allow DDs to spot and avoid torpedos..

tater
06-17-07, 04:26 PM
Wow, great find.

I guess if this prevents night attacks on the surface (I just read about one where the boat got within 700 yards of a jap DD before she was spotted), then perhaps the night modifiers can be messed with.

<G>

tater

tater
06-17-07, 04:50 PM
How does the AI sensors file deal with range? If you set it so it'll see a periscope at X meters, will it ever be possible to shadow a TF from the edge of visual range?

If such a drastic improvement in the sensors was a problem, would my idea of making a new visual sensor work? The new one would be the scope spotting variety, but would have a much shaper drop with range, or just a short max range...

I don't know enough about how they work.

leovampire
06-17-07, 05:28 PM
In the AI Sensors.DAT file so why not just make one type of Sensor other than visual able to pick up the perascopes and add that one sensor to the SNS file for each ship and or plane you want to see them? For example I noticed that some Jap war ships and planes get a sensor / radar upgrade at a lator date in the SNS files. So just change the date to get it earlier and adjust that one radar to pick up Scopes kind of like a second visual sensor. For example I set up all the US and the One British Search planes to have radar all the time from the begining to end so the have a better chance os finding enemy ships and bombing them for me to see and I gave all of the Alied Aircraft carriers radar as well. I tryed it with a couple of JAP Fleet carriers but once they detected me the Escorts came after me and planes were launched at me as well. Once I went under they broke off after a period of time but the escorts kept very alert and the task force stayed in a zig zag

tater
06-17-07, 06:19 PM
Yeah, I suggested a new "radar" up near the top of the thread, cool to see that it really works. I had thought that such a new sensor might have a very short range compared to some others.

I also thought that you could fake a MAD setup this way as well. Make a new sonar variety (yes, I know MAD isn;t sonar) and turn the "ping" noise off for it (if that is possible). Give it a really short range, then mount it on a plane...

tater

Jace11
06-17-07, 06:22 PM
Open the AI_Sensors.sim file with minitweaker. Scroll down to AI_Visual and adjust sensitivity to 0.

The ships and planes will see your scopes then and attack them with guns, MGs etc.

I have since adjusted my sim.cfg setting most modifiers back to their original values - no mods seem necessary now in my opinion. Light = 1.0, Waves = 1.0 Fog = 1.0,

I've tested MedFog at night/day LightFog Night/Day and HeavyFog Night Day. I always spot the enemy first and get a warning as my sensors.cfg (which controls crew visual detection) has lower modifiers for the various conditions..

Sim.cfg with AI_visual sensitivity set to 0 in the sim file:

[Visual]
Detection time=0.5 ;[s] min detection time.
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1) at (sensitivity * max range) we have a double detection time.
Fog factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Light factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=300 ;[m2]
Enemy speed factor=8 ;[kt]
Thermal Layer Signal Attenuation=1.0

Sensors.cfg:

;Visual.
Visual range factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Visual fog factor=0.95 ;[>=0]
Visual light factor=0.4 ;[>=0]
Visual waves factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual speed factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual aspect=0.2 ;[>=0]
Visual enemy speed=0.2 ;[>=0]
Visual noise factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual sensor height factor=0.2 ;[>=0]
Visual already tracking modifier=600 ;[detection probability modifier], most accurate, once a contact is detected it will lose it very hard
Visual decay time=200 ;[>0] already tracking bonus decay, in seconds
Visual uses crew efficiency=false ;[true or false]

I suppose if you set your crew and the AI crew modifiers to be the same, and their sensitivity is the same, they should spot each other at the same time...

I think re-modelling the system to allow you to wthin 700m of a DD at night is going to ruin it. But you can do it.. just increase the Light modifier in the sim cfg..

As it stands you can do that already in heavy fog if you have radar.. you just wont see them and they wont see you either..

tater
06-18-07, 11:04 AM
What does this line do:

Visual uses crew efficiency=false ;[true or false]

Would this tie the sensor to AI level?

tater

Julius Caesar
06-18-07, 11:47 AM
I'm using this values and ships are attacking my scope:

[Visual]
Detection time=0.25
Sensitivity=0.01
Fog factor=1.5 ;[>=0]
Light factor=2.25 ;[>=0]
Waves factor=0.75 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=30 ;[m2]
Enemy speed factor=45 ;[kt]
Thermal Layer Signal Attenuation=1.0

tater
06-18-07, 12:01 PM
I wished I knew what exactly was going on, lol.

In general I'd like to see my sub get attacked more often, but with less deadly results.

Reading Silent Victory, etc, you see subs getting DCed, sometimes for many hours—but they live, even if damaged.

I seem to either not get attacked at all, or I have 3xelite DDs work me over in shallow water til I die, lol.

You also read about the scope being spotted, then the escort "drove off the sub." I want that kinda thing more.

tater

Julius Caesar
06-18-07, 02:59 PM
never attack enemy with DDs in shallow water :lost:

increase [Visual] [Hydrophone] and [Sonar] settings in sim.cfg, decrease [AI Cannons] and dc effectiveness

Jace11
06-18-07, 04:43 PM
yup, I've done that too.

Increased visual, sonar and hydrophones for AI. Decreasing DC power is easy. There is a mod already, but you can easily do it in mintweaker.

Depthcharges.sim can be edited to increase shake range (your sub rolls etc from explosions) and depth precision (the mod makes them less accurate - default is 5 m so they wll explode very close to target depth while mod makes it 35m so they can miss easily)

Depthcharges.zon can be editied to reduce blast radius that causes damage - and the amount of damage done..

my current settings..
MinEF=140
MaxEF=200
MinRadius=4.5
MaxRadius=10

One problem I currently have is how ineffective DCs are at shallow depths compared to when they explode deep. You can run around at shallow depth with relative impunity while a near miss at 120m can sink you...

I have changed my depth precision to 10 and may try other changes...

leovampire
06-18-07, 04:55 PM
crew efficiency values to true then the radar sonar and so forth works only as well as you crew is capable.

tater
06-18-07, 06:19 PM
What are the EF values there?

tater

tater
06-25-07, 12:36 AM
Open the AI_Sensors.sim file with minitweaker. Scroll down to AI_Visual and adjust sensitivity to 0.

The ships and planes will see your scopes then and attack them with guns, MGs etc.

I have since adjusted my sim.cfg setting most modifiers back to their original values - no mods seem necessary now in my opinion. Light = 1.0, Waves = 1.0 Fog = 1.0,

I've tested MedFog at night/day LightFog Night/Day and HeavyFog Night Day. I always spot the enemy first and get a warning as my sensors.cfg (which controls crew visual detection) has lower modifiers for the various conditions..

Sim.cfg with AI_visual sensitivity set to 0 in the sim file:

[Visual]
Detection time=0.5 ;[s] min detection time.
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1) at (sensitivity * max range) we have a double detection time.
Fog factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Light factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=300 ;[m2]
Enemy speed factor=8 ;[kt]
Thermal Layer Signal Attenuation=1.0

Sensors.cfg:

;Visual.
Visual range factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Visual fog factor=0.95 ;[>=0]
Visual light factor=0.4 ;[>=0]
Visual waves factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual speed factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual aspect=0.2 ;[>=0]
Visual enemy speed=0.2 ;[>=0]
Visual noise factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual sensor height factor=0.2 ;[>=0]
Visual already tracking modifier=600 ;[detection probability modifier], most accurate, once a contact is detected it will lose it very hard
Visual decay time=200 ;[>0] already tracking bonus decay, in seconds
Visual uses crew efficiency=false ;[true or false]

I've been using these, and I like them, but I might need to tone them down just a little.

I'm still thinking that we should add a new AI sensor, is this possible? What I was thinking was we have AI_visual, and I think we need to add AI_warship_visual. The former would be set so that they might spot a scope, but it'd be pretty unlikely. Warships would have a better chance since they have more, and better trained lookouts. The skill levels (to the extent they make a difference) would be on top of that.

I'm still trying to figure out what the Detection time=0.5 means. Does this means it makes a check every half second? I'd like to make it so that you could keep the scope up long enough to take some data for a solution without them instantly spotting you. It should probably be longer than it would be in RL, since it's harder to get a solution manually since we have no crew (I'd tweak this for 100% real since auto targeting is too easy). Dumb things slow us down like not being able to keep the book open, etc. Heck, I wish I could set the target ID with the scope down and not locked.

The bottom line is that something like this level of detection is accurate, IMO. As I have ssaid before, I'm rereading Blair (almost done), and the number of spotetd scopes is huge. Realism demands that the escorts see you (and ideally torpedo wakes) far more than they do in the stock game. That said, I've combined this with redwine's DC mod. I think the DCs need to be toned down farther to be accurate as well.

Jace11
06-25-07, 06:37 AM
I use those numbers in conjunction with a 10km range mod and some sensor mods..(but only the visual sensor AI sensitivty = 0 is the only relavent one in this case) My whole install is intigrated like this so it is difficult to post one or two things and make them work right. Also I am using surface = 400 now for visual in sim.cfg but they still spot me really easily.

tater
06-25-07, 08:10 AM
cc.

I realize that an ultimate solution will likely be a total (if subtle) redo of the sensor, and even gun accuracy, etc values.

I'm trying to find a solution where they see my scope feather, charge, and drop some DCs, forcing me to take quick looks and be careful.

tater
06-25-07, 09:33 AM
I should add that while these changes have helped in getting escorts to harass me, I have yet to see a plane drop on my periscope.

This is still a goal for me, since I have read many accounts of subs near, but not on, the surface being bombed.

tater

Jace11
06-25-07, 11:56 AM
I think I have, something happened to me last night.. I was playing the Torpedo Attack mission in the subschool honing my skillz.. My mission is slightly modded in that the patrol plane comes in at a different angle and is carrying a nasty payload. The Mogami must have seen my scope as it started zig-zagging, but I was too engrossed in targeting etc..

Fired my torps then boom! Heavy damage and both scopes destoryed.. I thought I'd been hit by a circle runner but I saw in external view that it was the bomber. Very accurate, but did it SEE my scope or drop on the coordinates sent to it by the Mogami... Not certain.. however only my scope was up, and not for very long..

By the way here is my Guadalcanal Layer..

http://www.speedyshare.com/960665370.html

Er dunno if it will work for you with the differences between our roster files also, in campaign.cfg I think the layer is called at some silly date in 1944 unless you fixed it in your version.

The funny formations and start locations are all for timing and so the ships arrive at rougly the right angles, formations etc. I have tested it in a single mission and the first night works with the 2 TFs slugging it out... japs should win too, second night cruisers come done unopposed, third night another battle, not tested it, looks ok in the simultor but needs testing in real campaign.

One thing I noticed when running the simulator in the editor is sometimes there is some variation, i.e ships will meet sometimes and nothen just miss if you re-run the layer..???? The difference is tiny and Im not certain but may depend on what zoom level you are watching at as run the editors simulation mode... what a pain...

tater
06-25-07, 12:53 PM
The only changes would be the subchaser and minesweeper. The date change on agano is historical for her putting to sea, so if you used agano, it should be fine. Will try it!

tater
06-25-07, 02:20 PM
Looks good. Why the 2d Akizuki DD, when only Teruzuki was there?

Jace11
06-25-07, 04:02 PM
Well, I think it's supposed to be the same one. The other one will disappear the day before, then it respawns for the next sortie south. Been a while since I made this layer.

tater
06-25-07, 04:15 PM
Duh. Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense since there is no way to break up groups after forming them.

tater
10-27-07, 09:25 AM
Punted for Ducimus' work on AI Visuals.