Affecting visual ranges

[lancerr]

I know there's have been dispersed sets of discussions on affecting visual ranges in SH4 (but as part of other thread) but I wanted to see if we could create this thread to focus on that issue alone.

I am attempting to mod the excellent work done by Xantrokles on the Pocket BB to allow long range ship to ship combat.

Currently, I've been able to change the optical zoom distance for the deck gun to correspond closer to getvisual ranges of detection. However, a critical part of surface gunnery was to be able to spot the fall of shot through shell splashes and adjust for the next pattern.

That's where I'm running into problems. Adjusting zoom, shell splash height do not seem to affect the visibility of shell splashes and currently, I can only see them out to 4500 yards.

Does anyone have any ideas on where to look to modify this so that shell splashes can be seen out to 13000 yards (which is still less than the ideal range but we can work on getting small improvements first).

[JoeCorrado]

The use of spotter planes was needed. That is why battleships were equipped with these spotters. It was impossible to adjust fire from the battleship itself without the use of spotter planes. The "splash" effect at 13,000 meters was simply not visible to the lookouts on board the ship.

Maybe these sim battleships need to be 'compelled' to make use of these spotters somehow? Each battleship was equipped with them for scouting and adjust fire.

[lancerr]

I'm not sure about that. Here's an excerpt from Battle Bismarck - a survivor's account describing the encounter with the Hood where there was no use of spotter planes.

Pg 105. "The range I figured was less than 25000 meter. There were flashes like lightning out there. Still approaching nearly bow-on, the enemy had opened fire."

"Certain that we would immediately return fire, I braced myself..."


If the Bismarck and Hood were able to sight each other at 25000 yards, then they could also see the shell splashes that would often be as tall as the superstructure of a battleship.

[Nisgeis]

At that range you don't have any depth perception, so if you could see the splashes, you could maybe say they were short or they were long, if they were directly in line with the target, but you wouldn't be able to say by how much. Submarine skippers saw some of their torpedoes exploding and it looked like they were hitting, but in fact they were exploding before they reached the target.

As JoeCorrado says, spotter planes could be used for longe range and also the radar manual talks about using radar to measure the range of shell splashes.

[Fincuan]

At that range you don't have any depth perception, so if you could see the splashes, you could maybe say they were short or they were long, if they were directly in line with the target, but you wouldn't be able to say by how much.

Cant' they use the rangefinders for that? I don't know how it works at sea, but in the army the guy responsible for stereo range finding in my group could easily tell how far the splashes were from the target, even far beyond the 800 meters where you practically lose depth perception if you're only using naked eye. The device he used was a 70-centimeter one made in 1925, the precision being about 5 meters up to 1500 meters and deteriorating after that. A device made in 1925 might sound antique, but it worked damn well. I was especially happy to have it around whenever it was too foggy or rainy for the laser, which we normally used, to work properly.

Here's some info on the range finding equipment installed on Bismarck
http://www.bismarck-class.dk/technicallayout/rangefinder/bismarck/rangefinder_bism.html

[Nisgeis]

Hmmm, I seem to be having trouble posting just now...

Well, I was referring to the OP's 25 km range on the Bismarck with the naked eye. I don't know much about the stereoscopic range finders. As you say stereoscopic range finders lose range resolution the further away the target is, due to the angle changing less as the distance increases. At maximum firing range, would you have enough time to zero in on a splash with enough accuracy, considering all the smoke from your own guns? If you do, then that's another trick in the bag.

Lancerr, in particles.dat there should be a section regarding draw distances, near and far or something, I can't remember now and I'm not at my gaming PC. But I think that should allow you to adjust how far an effect gets drawn out to.

[Fincuan]

Googling turned out this: http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1429&p=13690

and interesting discussion on stereoscopic spotting range vs. accuracy

[lancerr]

Wow - So not too far off and definitely not impossible to have gunnery exchanges at 20K yards (albeit with increased inaccuracy)

Nisgeis - I've spent the better part of the day looking for a way to increase the visibilty of splashes to no avail -

I have increased particle count, particle life, particle opacity, emitter size and yet, I get no visible indication of splashes.

It's incredibly frustrating since I can see the smoke discharged by the enemy guns, just not my splashes. How is that even possible??

I was even tempted to change the Fog.tga file that SH4 engine uses to remove any visual attenuation but I haven't done it yet.

[Nisgeis]

Nice find Fincuan, I was thinking about this and I must be wrong about visual ranging with the naked eye, because I was thinking about being on a submarine, which is very low down, but I suppose that if you were oin a higher platform, you would have more of an angle between you and the target ships's waterline. So at medium ranges you should at least be able to see if shells are falling short or far, but not necessarily with any good accuracy.

Lancerr, sorry for the late reply, but I got a new router and it didn't like subsim.com. Have you tried modifying the &Shell_water_explosion.ParticleGenerator.GlobalScal eFar properties, to match the settings for funnel smoke? DensityScale i think would be an important factor.

[jmardlin]

I think I fixed it. There was a conflict in &Big_Shell_water_explosion in particles.dat. Open particles.dat with Silent 3ditor (v0.9.4) delete node 214 include children, then on what is now node 215 change Delete no children to true, and finally go to GlobalScaleFar and change DensityScale to "0.01". Splashes with big guns will now be visible beyond 4500 yards. Small guns already work right. It took me almost ten hours to figure this out. You can follow this link for an updated file. http://hosted.filefront.com/jmardlin/ :yep::rock:

[vanjast]

German WW2 Radar range finders
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_Radar.htm

Which is part of this website..
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/index_weapons.htm (http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WRGER_05.htm)

[Torpex752]

When I was serving o the USS Pasadena and we were surfaced I would stand watch as the "Contact Coordinator". With our #2 periscope raised we could easily see out to 20kyds. That height of eye was around 42', so I am sure a BB that had range finders and observation towers 90-100' in the air could easily see out to 30kyds with good optics. The best I ever did was 27kyds with the #2 scope, on a flat sea.


Frank