[TEC] Searchlight values in S3D

[tater]

I'm messing with these to see if I can get them more like RL. Turns out the 2 shipboard versions are in guns_radars.dat. The Search_Lights.dat has 3 more (unused on ships), and the land folder has it's own. We have searchlights to burn, so I can mess with a few to get differing effects!

Sadly, the person who knew the most about these was dave. I've had trouble even looking at files in the last week, frankly. Makes me sad. Anyway...

To business.

Angle is pretty self explanatory. I've dropped some from the stock 10 degrees to 2 degrees (RL was 1.25 or so, though they had a spreader for short ranged flood lighting---which is why I might make 2 types, and put both on the ships).

Color values are pretty self explanatory.

Range: Presumably in meters. The stock game uses 200 for this. I made one 7000. None of the ships seem to employ it past 2000m or so, however. This I need to figure out better.

Atenuation:
Within this there is A=5 (stock) and B=1 (stock). Not sure what they refer to, and what the range of acceptable values is yet.

Halo Size: 0.2 is stock. That's the big bright halo we see that totally obscures the target ship. Smaller numbers are smaller halos. I think 0.2 is too big, but 0.1 is probably too small. I want them to obsucre the target, but still have some detail on the ship visible.

[skwasjer]

Attenuation probably refers to intensity of start of beam (A) to end of beam (B). I'm not sure, you'll have to try it out a bit.

[edit] Woops, the description of the parent property says:

Light intensity = 1 / (A + B*<distance>)

So, yea, I'm about right, not entirely but close :)

[tater]

That helps a lot.

Hey, if the parent property stuff is read by S3D anyway, is there a chance that such remarks could be available to see in a future S3D version? That would eliminate a gajillion "WTF does X mean?" questions...

tater

[skwasjer]

I've taken all descriptions from the game .act files. None are my own.

In this case, I'll copy the parent description to the A and B property. In some cases this is not wanted, and in some cases this isn't possible (some special cases).

If descriptions are empty or missing, this means the .act files had none for them, and therefor I left them blank, simply because I don't know what they mean. It's up to the users to tell me (and also, if they feel the description is not entirely acurate). Again, I have limited knowledge about what each property actually means and does, so you people have to tell me ;)

[tater]

Now I need to figure out what controls turning them on in the first place. I've had them not come on with the ship already shooting at me at long range. It's clearly not detection.

I'd say they were treated as AAA, but they snapped on at 2100 yards and change or so (~2000m). AAA gun range was set to 1500m.

Also, they sweep around looking for a periscope sometimes and don't ever spot you.

I was kind of hoping to see a beam lancing out for a few nautical miles (they illuminated other warships at ~2nm type ranges in RL).

tater

[tater]

Regarding S3D, I was thinking a "remarks" or "notes" area that would put whatever text in in the act associated with a given selected value into the notes box if it exists.

Dunno if that is possible, just a dumb user bugging you :)

tater

[skwasjer]

Do you mean this?

http://sh4.skwas.net/images/screenshots/3.jpg

In that case, it's time for you to upgrade ;p

[tater]

I'm using 0.5.3, actually (grabbed the latest, but hadn't uninstalled and installed the new one yet.

[skwasjer]

As far as the distance of the beam, tater, this may be limited by the actual 3D model. I guess the model is a cone, and it may be limited to a certain range... (don't know if the game stretches the model using paraemters in this controller). Just a thought...

[edit] obviously doesn't explain why the don't point it at you when they are shooting at you

[tater]

I'm an idiot.

I was clicking on the values, and entirely skipped over the parent since I knew there was nothign to edit. Sure enough, there is the description!

WTG, you're many steps ahead of the clueless end user :D

tater

[The General]

Glad to hear you guys are tackling this issue. I always thought the Searchlights in SH4 were lame. I much prefer the way they are in SH3, where you could actually see a beam and not just the [much too dim] light we see on the water in SH4. Maybe post a few screeshts of different variations and let the Mob decide, like someone recently did with some video of adjustments to the pitch+roll sub physics. Good luck with this.:up:

[tater]

Hmm, then why range and angle? I assumed it was generated based upon those values. I will try some extremes.

Leo said the lighthouses shared the same lights, but I'm beginning to wonder. Perhaps they use the search_lights.dat and its 3 lights. Might have to try setting that one to near zero and see if I can black out the lighthouses...



tater

[tater]

Leo's thread:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=123459&highlight=searchlight

Looks like I should start with ROW as a baseline for this to get the reflections, etc, right. (that's probably going to become a standard statement, huh?)

:(

<EDIT> Rereading that thread. It's interesting, I tend to be sort of a stream of consciousness sort of guy. I'm generally trying to be constructive (my negative posts, assuming you can find any are pretty explicit, frankly). Dave and I were on different wavelengths for much of that. Rereading it... wish I had made it more clear that I wasn't trying to be anything but constructive, now I can't correct it. Lesson learned.

tater

[skwasjer]

Hmm, then why range and angle? I assumed it was generated based upon those values. I will try some extremes.

Leo said the lighthouses shared the same lights, but I'm beginning to wonder. Perhaps they use the search_lights.dat and its 3 lights. Might have to try setting that one to near zero and see if I can black out the lighthouses...



tater
Maybe so. I was just guessing, as there is also a model associated with the beam node. Hell, I don't know anything tbh ;)

[tater]

I actually think he was mistaken about that, modding the guns_radars lights clearly changes the shipboard ones, I'm confident of that. I independently stuck all 3 in search_lights.dat onto a ship via eqp, so I know for a fact they are different.

[tater]

They seem to snap them on at 2000m. 2160-something yards like clockwork. The light goes farther. So there are 2 things here, the visual effect, and the ability to turn on the light in the first place.

[Peto]

Now I need to figure out what controls turning them on in the first place. I've had them not come on with the ship already shooting at me at long range. It's clearly not detection.

tater

I think they turn them on when they know you're around but aren't sure where. Like when they spot torpedos or they saw you on the surface but you dove. In cases like that, they click on the halogens :hmm:.

[tater]

I get them to notice me because I can see the signal lights going, and they constant helm.

They snap the lights on at 2000m, and they shoot longer than that first. 2000m is a cutoff, hit that, and boom, on go the lights.

[Peto]

I never noticed that but it makes sense (thinking back...) One exception though is when they spot torpedos. I fired from 3400 yards tonight and they lit up the searchlights when the torps were about 10 seconds from hitting even though I was still well over 3000 yards out...

[tater]

Interestijng.

Considering I want to revamp the AI_visuals (multiple visuals) to allow night surface attacks, 2000m isn't horrible to work with.

Wonder what controller has the lighthouse just sweep with it. I should check the land-based one. It might well be unit type dependent.

tater

[Peto]

Have you tried set the cfg file:

Visual uses crew efficiency=false (make it true)?

When I messed with it in SH3, it seemed like Elites were not affevted by the change but veteran/competent had their visual range reduced by a small percentage. It was main thing I had to do to make night surface attacks work for me in SH3. I've read that these files are overwritten in SH4 by another layer of code.

In essence: If a unit has a 2000 yard range for a sensor, only the elite can reach the maximum. Veteran loses a small percentage of that and Competent loses a little more etc.

What I have tried (with little apparent success) is creating a unit with Elite Sonar, Competent Lookouts and Veteran Radar (or any variant of the 3). Not every ship was good (or bad) at every aspect of ASW. The problems I think I encountered working with these aspects was the AI seemed to get more confused and less agressive. Or simply lost :shifty:.

Surface attacks are on my list too. Merchants especially should have Competent lookouts wit an Elite crew IMO. There were exception but it was typically the Navy that had the best optics.

More notes: I can easily approach a convoy on the surface in SH4 as long as no enemy ships can get a broad visual aspect angle on my sub. As soon as I try to turn (flooded down, going slow/fast--doesn't matter) I am spotted. I've considered shortening AI Visual range and dropping the aspect angle to "give myself a chance" at escaping on the surface. My concern is that this will have too great of an impact during daylight hours.

;Visual.
Visual range factor=0.5 ;[>=0] Reduce?
Visual fog factor=1 ;[>=0]
Visual light factor=1 ;[>=0]
Visual waves factor=0.8 ;[>=0]
Visual speed factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual aspect=0.9 ;[>=0]
Visual enemy speed=0.2 ;[>=0] Increase?
Visual noise factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual sensor height factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Visual already tracking modifier=600 ;[detection probability modifier], most accurate, once a contact is detected it will lose it very hard Reduce?
Visual decay time=250 ;[>0] already tracking bonus decay, in seconds
Visual uses crew efficiency=false True

Visual Height Factor=should not really be an issue. If anything, looking down at a submarine made it harder to see because it blended with the background of the sea better. The lower the lookout, the better the chance he could use the horizon to his advantage in spotting surfaced subs.

I want to work on some of these things myself but have really been concentrating on my current project (with a couple breaks for family and sanity :yep:). I'm reluctant to get side-tracked right now...

[tater]

Remember that there are 2 cfgs. One is only for your sub (sensors.cfg), the other for AI ships (Sim.cfg).

As for height, that's not observer height, I believe that is the minimum height the sensor will see. So if it was 1m, a scope would be invisible below 1m (I think). In reality, while low might help for something right on the horizon, the horizon distance is a function of observer height.

My ultimate solution for visuals is to have many different visual sensors to pick from. So merchants can has whatever they are equipped with in their sns file. Any number of merchants can be BP-cloned to a new name, and given better or worse sensors, too, to mix things up.