AI detection in TMO for sh4 ver 1.5

[Ducimus]

Im thinking about upping the notch on it a little bit. My question to you is, Should I?

My trouble is, i know how it works, and i play accordingly. So to me, it seems fairly easy. I could probably make every convoy escort into little "bungo petes" before id cry uncle. So i need others opinions since i can't accurately gauge its difficulty.

[Ducimus]

:hmm:

It just occured to me, i should have made this detection poll more specific to hydrophones or sonar. DOH! :damn:


If anyone would be as so kind, respond to this post, and tell me if you think the AI is too easy to break contact with once detection has been established.

[thasaint]

as i just said in another post, way too easy to avoid detection, and after you're detected if you go below the thermal layer they lose you pretty quick. the only time in this game after many hours of playing i've EVER taken damage from a depth charge attack is when i'm in shallow waters with no thermal layer

just as a comparison to sh3, i remember in sh3 if you had 3+ destroyers on you, it would take a LONG time to break contact, and a bunch of dc's would do a little damage or at least get close enough to rock your boat. now i know japanese asw was nowhere near as effective as allied ASW, but it seems to me to be complete opposite ends of the spectrum...

[Ducimus]

So what your telling me is, that in TMO, the effects of a Thermal Layer, is too much like a ummmm.. oh hell..... ill say it... .a "klingon cloaking device"?

[mlp071]

You have to take into account that there is at least 4 types of players that are using(or interested in) your mod.

One is people that played SH3 , second one is suicidal/masochistic ones that are playing/played GWX (like me), third one that wants just (unreal)tonnage and fourth one new players that is still learning basics.

Second and (probably)first group will find it easy to avoid escorts, third one will probably have problems with more danger, while forth one will be over their head probably.

So it's up to your judgement which way to go with your mod.

I am testing mods(TMO & RFB) to find one that i will complement along with GWX , since i really want to play PTO also, so i don't have to much knowledge about RFB and TMO.

But even as a n00b in PTO/SH4 , when i did some patrols in 1.4 , i got quite a bit of tonnage and mostly avoided escorts without any problems with 1-2 maneuvers, or going bellow TL.

Hopefully this can help.

[Ducimus]

:hmm: Well, my goal is "near atlantic difficulty", but not full blown atlantic difficulty. Japanese ASW wasnt as good as the allies, but they weren't all that bad either. So this is one of those things where it try and balance realism and historical accuracy with what makes a fun game. That said, i cannot in good concious make the ASW as difficult as the allies. (although id love to, and could if i wanted. :p )

At any rate , dumb escorts.. are dull. Increase their ability to detect the player and at the begining things are overwhelming to a new player. However assuming one sticks with the game or mod long enough - old hat.

Still the question remains, just how far do i want to, (or how far should i) push AI detection? In terms of active, and passive sonar. Visual detection i think is close enough.

[Factor]

could this be released as an optional AI mod pack? That way, you could make a hard core mod,(atlantic style), and what you are looking at now. 2 options that the user could decide on?:hmm:

[mlp071]

:hmm: Well, my goal is "near atlantic difficulty", but not full blown atlantic difficulty. Japanese ASW wasnt as good as the allies, but they weren't all that bad either. So this is one of those things where it try and balance realism and historical accuracy with what makes a fun game. That said, i cannot in good concious make the ASW as difficult as the allies. (although id love to, and could if i wanted. :p )

At any rate , dumb escorts.. are dull. Increase their ability to detect the player and at the begining things are overwhelming to a new player. However assuming one sticks with the game or mod long enough - old hat.

Still the question remains, just how far do i want to, (or how far should i) push AI detection? In terms of active, and passive sonar. Visual detection i think is close enough.
If i may suggest, from my limited expirience with TMO.

It is not just escorts being dumb, also players having very accurate tools(sonars with small error margin, for example) at hand to(maybe to accurate IMHO) and quite potent torpedoes( even bad placed torpedo can sink big ship).

PTO IRL was not easy by any means, only very few USS patrols in whole war had more then 30k tonnage:

http://www.valoratsea.com/records1.htm (http://www.valoratsea.com/tonnage1.htm)

and only small amount of US Subs managed to sink more the 30k in whole war.

I am not saying that it should be that way literaly, but you have right now players sinking , at least, double those numbers on regular basis, with no sweat.

so you draw the conclusion.

And as for having patrols without any tonnage, maybe you can look at this. U-212 UBoat had 15 patrols and 1 ship sunk total :

http://uboat.net/boats/u212.htm

And Germans far more exceded tonnage per patrol in comparison to USS during the war.

Maybe 2 ways to do:

- 2 versions of mod , eg. casual and hardcore.That could be nightmare to maintain for you though(sort of like 1.4 and 1.5 )

- Gradually improving IJN sensors, and IJN crew expirience as time goes, to represent "improvements that they made".
If those "improvements" could be added randomised factor of detection ranging from present detection level to some high one(+/- 5-10% random difference) , you will never know are you getting easy shot or you are in for it when you run into convoy(still gonna have easy shots though).Same with escort crew expirience.In addition make USS sonars/hydrophones little bit less accurate, TL less protective and torpedoes less deadly.

[claybirdd]

May I suggest upping the DC accuracy to a factor of 10 rather than 15. Seems to shake the boat a little more. Max range of 20 is dead on perfect.
Also I agree with one of the above posts. A seasoned skipper (like myself) finds it just to easy to snake away from the DD's. plus before i tweaked the DC settings I never really had to worry about the ashcans either.

[thasaint]

exactly, thermal layer is like a romulan cloak :P

up the active below the thermal layer a tad, when the DD is sailing right over me at my 90 or 270, shouldn't it ping me even with a thermal layer?

hell up passive too as long as they don't detect you when you're doing like 1 knot running silent... that might be a lil farfetched heh, but as a previous poster stated, i'm a SH3 player and GWX survivor :P so bring on the hardcore mode, tired of getting 80k tons a mission without even a single depth charge being dropped over me

[Ducimus]

PTO IRL was not easy by any means, only very few USS patrols in whole war had more then 30k tonnage:

http://www.valoratsea.com/records1.htm

and only small amount of US Subs managed to sink more the 30k in whole war.


Part of the problem is traffic is too plentiful. Ive reworked the campaign layers (not published yet) that should lessen this problem. Although, fact of the matter is, players ARE going to sink more tonnage then historically possible - all were talking about here is a matter of degree. The smallest degree, the better, but i dont think ill ever get tonnage scores to exacting historical paramaters.

Another part of the "realistic tonnage" formula is, as you mentioned, torpedos. I have increased failure rate, but i dont want to increase it to the point of utter frustration. Yes, true, historically accurete - however, i personally keep in mind that this is indeed, a video game meant to entertain, simulation though it may be. Dud rate, i want more then stock, but less then the frustration point. Which is all well and good, but it still leaves me with ordinance a bit more potent then statistics would show. I could always reduce the warhead strength, but its my opinion that the warheads are right where they need to be.


Another part is sinking mechanics. The tricker things are to sink, the more ordinance your apt to use, the less sinkings you earn because you dont have enough ordinance for it. The biggest thing here, is uncertaintly. If i could remove that target destroyed message, it would be a HUGE step in the right direction. But since i can't, players know exactly what they need, and use no more. I could always try and adapt some version of NSM, but the main bennfit to NSM, from a techncial standpoint, is more realistic deck gun performance. I could always do this, by simply lowering shell damage and slighly decreasing ROF.


ASW, is a huge part of it as well. In particualr to ASW patrols and convoy escorts. Speaking from a game design point of view - The lack or shortage of escorts in some instances of the current campaign layers in TM is one contributer to this, as well as ASW sensors needing some more fine tuning. An aggressive AI, is a HUGE deterent. They dont have to kill you, they just have to keep your head down. if they do that, they have accomplished their purpose.

edit:

It just occured to me, that by my very defintion of stated goals (75% realistc / 25% gameplay), makes historicaly accurate tonnage on the part of the player all but impossible. That said, where 100K patrols were possible, right now i think the most a player can expect on a patrol is around 30K.. maybe 40K if they get some choice targets. If i can keep that locked down to 30K or less (give or take), i think its an accurate measure of having obtained my stated goals.

[tedhealy]

Sounds good to me. I've been thinking about why it's so easy to rack up the tonnage lately and I think you nailed everything.

I can sit in traffic lanes or very near ports and pick and choose who I sink. Why can I do this and the real captains couldn't? I think it's a combination of too much traffic that stumbles into you, not enough planes near high traffic areas/ports to keep you from moving around on the surface at high speed at will, not enough escorts/patrol craft in general to keep you under or chase you away, and the traffic nor the AI adjusts to you.

The last one is what really has gotten me lately. I can patrol within 50 miles of Rabaul and within a 24 hour period send 30k to the bottom and I get no reaction. No rerouting traffic around the area, little if any reaction from planes, and zero ASW response.

When going from the Coral Sea to the Bismarck Sea, I can motor right on past Rabaul in that narrow channel on the surface with little opposition most of the time.

[thasaint]

...Another part of the "realistic tonnage" formula is, as you mentioned, torpedos. I have increased failure rate, but i dont want to increase it to the point of utter frustration....
tbh torpedo failure rate in the opening year without that crew member with the bonus reduction in duds is very good... i remember shooting 4 torpedoes at a freighter, 2 ran deep, 2 were duds. i wanted to smash my monitor then i realised "hey wait that's the way it SHOULD be"... no more 1 torp launch, 1 torp hit, 1 torp kills

the campaign i'm doing that's in my sig, 7 patrols 245k tons sunk thus far, the majority of those tons were sunk in the last couple of patrols after i got the officer with the torpedo bonus... my first patrols were between 8k-35k each, now i'm raking in 80k-100k.

oh yes another point is that enemy aircraft are totally useless against you, your radar spots them before they even spot you, and you're at 200+ feet before they can even drop a bomb if they had even detected you. again i know the uboats got decimated by asw aircraft, and i'm not too familiar on japanese asw aircraft vs. fleet boats, but i'm sure something goes wrong once in awhile and a plane gets to attack a fleet boat.


...When going from the Coral Sea to the Bismarck Sea, I can motor right on past Rabaul in that narrow channel on the surface with little opposition most of the time....
is it possible to have destroyers come attack you when you sit let's say 50nm from an enemy port and sink ships? i know this happened in SH3... i remember taking out ships and having enemy aircraft come to investigate/attack you, or any destroyers in the area. you could torp a ship, then surface to finish it with your guns, and by the time the ship is going down an enemy aircraft is spotted. it didn't matter if those ships/aircraft were part of the convy/fleet/task force you had hit a ship in. it just felt like the enemy was alive and communicating with eachother

again i realise a lot of this stuff is not TM's doing ducimus, and are causes of the stock game, but hopefully there's a way to fix this and make it more enjoyable.