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View Full Version : GWX 2.1, Hydrophones, and bad weather


difool2
05-15-08, 11:28 PM
Jan '43, continuing my XXI career in the North Atlantic. Unending 14-15 m/s winds with overcast for the past 3 weeks. I am running LRT 2.02 and the mod of Racerboy's altered for GWX 2.1, plus several other miscellaneous things.

I got a radio report on a convoy, bound due E, not more than 150 km away, and set up an intercept course, and once on his presumed track proceeded to zig back and forth trying to pick up his scent. 3 separate times on moderate TC I got the tell tale "freeze" of the timer which usually means that a lot of ships have entered my 32k (or is it 36k?) zone of detection (and are being loaded into RAM/virtual memory), and each and every time it was on a heading of 110 degrees from the contact report, but a sonar check (16-20 meters depth) each time revealed nary the sound of a single screw.

Hence my question is whether 2.1 models sound attentuation at long ranges during bad weather, thus lessening the actual range at which you can hear contacts, over what you could do in 2.0 and what (I guess) you could detect in a calm sea state (the usual 32 km). If the answer was no I guess it was just 3 wild coincidences when my hard drive froze momentarily on the exact same heading of that convoy.

Yes I had the volume of my hydrophones cranked all the way up, and yes there was a crewman (highly decorated master chief) manning the station (and one in the radio chair).

Jimbuna
05-16-08, 05:49 AM
Sometimes you need to sit in his cabin yourself and manually search for the sound.

I'm not sure why, but it's a quirk from stock I believe.

difool2
05-16-08, 09:40 AM
Duhh that's what I'm doing (I am well aware that the sound guy has a maximum 18k range). Just wondering if this is a bug, feature, or hardware glitch on my end.

Jimbuna
05-16-08, 02:24 PM
Rgr that.

onelifecrisis
05-16-08, 02:33 PM
Rgr that.

:rotfl:

onelifecrisis
05-16-08, 02:33 PM
Difool2, yes, the weather has an effect on how well you can hear. Does that answer your question?

difool2
05-16-08, 09:36 PM
I guess. Is there solid info on exactly what these changes do in terms of expected detection ranges? I just scanned the 2.1 online manual and saw no mention of heavy weather affecting sonar range; will the AI sonar man also have a reduced range (from the default 18km)?

Jimbuna
05-17-08, 03:58 PM
Go to 50metres and you can forget about the weather :doh: