To: RR, Dick O'Kane Madness!!

[Sevrin]

Wanted to send a shout your way for the work you did on the O'kane and Cromwell videos. Venturing into that territory led me down the path of manual targeting, RFB, RSRD, plotting solutions, vector analysis, etc. etc.

The days of the 'noob cannon', flak gun and triangle are long dead. May they forever rest in peace.

It's amazing the transition one makes after discovering the joys of manual targeting. The game breathes new life. I realize the developers did what they could with time allotted and resources allowed, but my, what a far cry stock is from where we are now!

RFB + RSRD is just what the doctored ordered. You can't beat that with a stick. I am curious about Ducimus' evil brainchild though, so I may have to see what TMO has to offer up. :arrgh!:

Again - thanks for the 'noob-friendly' vids that convert the 'curious' to the 'hardcore'. After all, that's what it's all about is it not?... "stay with 'em til they're on the bottom"...

:yep:



x crabapples crabapples x

[Rockin Robbins]

Posts like yours make it all seem worthwhile, even though it was hours upon hours of dull drudgery, working without food or sleep for......

Not buying it, huh? Well, it is true that the whole reason I do the tutorials is for the new guy who either is just so frustrated he's ready to quit, or the guy who is just plain bored but intimidated by manual targeting. Manual targeting takes an OK game and turns it into something really sublime! It never gets old after that because every attack can be different.

Thanks! You put a smile on my face.:D

[Sevrin]

It was the absolute boredom of auto-targeting from max range that changed my perspective. When you're almost always guaranteed a hit, what's the point? But I was a bit intimidated to learn manual. Glad I did.

The O'Kane and vector method are so easy though, almost doesn't seem like 'manual'. And they provide a gateway to the more advanced thinking...

Good stuff! :woot:

I'm curious what your thoughts on the 'contact updates' setting is though. I know some consider this a serious 'cheat' because it's basically a 'god's eye view of everything'. I'm on the fence about it...

How does this square with the amount of information real sub skippers had available at the time?

[Rockin Robbins]

Well, real skippers sure didn't have friend/foe/neutral colors, target silhouettes to tell you what kind of ship you have out there, velocity vector tails or descriptive text. TMO removes all that, leaving you with a monocolor position point and very restricted descriptive text. If you are using any other version of the game, you can install TMOplot (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=151) and get the TMO plotting system.

Now you are left with just one defect and that's GPS-like visual sighting positioning. You're on your honor not to take measurements from visual positions, but to plot them yourself from collected observation. There is no way to eliminate plotting of visual objects only in the SH4 plot, so we have to accept this limitation or go all the way to the paper bag over the head.

I contend that contacts off is unrealistic so long as you have the TMO plotting system in place because radar positions are only rendered in the nav map. The scope can't give you the accurate information that real skippers had, as radar positions were the gold standard of targeting, accurate to a couple of dozen yards. Unless we could get such accurate range and bearing info from our scope, forget it! Contacts off is challenging but in no way realistic.

[Sevrin]

Thanks RR, :up:

[DigitalAura]

Makes me wonder what the modern sub skippers do... I mean, do they also long for the 'old days' when there was some luck/skill/work involved in stalking their prey? do the new subs today do everything for you? I'd get awfully bored of that.

[Rockin Robbins]

My guess is that all the computers, advanced sensors and super-weaponry don't change the fact that amazing resourcefulness is necessary to stalk targets without being yourself detected. The more things change the more they remain the same.

[ColonelSandersLite]

I contend that contacts off is unrealistic so long as you have the TMO plotting system in place because radar positions are only rendered in the nav map. The scope can't give you the accurate information that real skippers had, as radar positions were the gold standard of targeting, accurate to a couple of dozen yards. Unless we could get such accurate range and bearing info from our scope, forget it! Contacts off is challenging but in no way realistic.

I've got to strongly disagree with you here. Even with TMO, the map contacts are far too perfect to be at all realistic. Instead of saying hey, since the radar is so inacurate, it's ok to have map contacts on, I suggest looking into a mod that makes the radar range reading more usable.

I use this:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=152097

It has full instructions to enable it with any mod combination using s3d. Hell, I'll even give you the the appropriately edited TMO 1.7 files if you so desire.

Using this mod, my radar plot beyond 20,000 yards is accurate to within 0.2 NM. Between 10,000 and 20,000 yards my average accuracy is 0.1 nm which is as accurate as the plotting tools in game are themselves. Under 10,000 yards, my radar plot is accurate to within somewhere between 50 and 100 yards.

Since you're tracking the target the whole time between when you pick him up and decide he's too close for radar depth, which can be anywhere be anywhere between 45 mins game time to a couple of hours game time, there's frankly no excuse for not having a fully usable firing solution by the time he's close enough to actually shoot at using nothing but the radar and manual plotting.

[Rockin Robbins]

What's the point? If you are right and you have some miraculous way to read accurate bearings off the radar screen to go along with the digital range from Nisgeis, then you're just plotting the same position the automatic game plot does. The captain would never leave the bridge to go down to the radar, note the bearing and range, then walk over to the chart table himself and chart it.

Why would we think it makes the game "more accurate" if we do something no captain would ever do, especially when the result is exactly the same? Since we are substituting the actions of one player for the actions of several people, the amount of time we take necessitates stopping time, alt-tabbing to other tools or other completely unrealistic actions. Realistically, the captain would be on the bridge or at his post in the conning tower maintaining situational awareness at all times. The TMO plotting system allows you to behave realistically. Plotting and manning the radar station personally does not.

It's all a compromise, but I believe we are best served by accepting the limitations imposed on us by the game and realizing that plotting the radar position on the chart automatically is a reasonable thing. If people disagree, they can put the paper bag over their head, but it is just more difficult, not more realistic.

[ColonelSandersLite]

What's the point? If you are right and you have some miraculous way to read accurate bearings off the radar screen to go along with the digital range from Nisgeis, then you're just plotting the same position the automatic game plot does. The captain would never leave the bridge to go down to the radar, note the bearing and range, then walk over to the chart table himself and chart it.


The point is that I make mistakes (heh, don't hear myself say that very often ;) ) and there is deviation even when I don't. The automatic charting does not make mistakes and has no trouble tracking 500 targets simultaneously with 0 error.

Error is human, perfection is silicone.

Now you know, if someone could find a way to incorporate deviation, errors and *update frequency* into the map contacts, I would be there! Until then, nuts to that.



Edit: Also note that I'm not using a digital range readout, but the A-Scope provided in that mod. If you use that mod, the bearing indicator just above the A-Scope is calibrated and viewable now and works perfectly. There's no miracles here, just with that mod, things work the way they're supposed to!

[Rockin Robbins]

Yikes. How are you going to read an accurate range off the logarithmic scale of the A-scope? In real life, the range estimate would be more accurate than the computer plot on the nav map because of pixel binning. Also, the B scope could indeed track 50 targets at a time with no problem. In practice, only a couple were followed on the plot, just as we routinely ignore 498 of the "500" targets plotted on the nav map.

Actually, I've never seen a fifth of your 500 contacts. Any way you want to cut it, radar contacts in a real submarine would be plotted with greater accuracy than our automatic nav map.

It's all a matter of personal preference here. Either way you choose to go, there are imperfections. But the imperfections with map contacts off are much more egregious than with map contacts on. Until the state of submarine simulations includes error distribution weighted by data collection conditions and methods we're stuck with either accepting the limitations of our simulation or putting a paper bag over our head and pretending to be wearing a space helmet.

[ColonelSandersLite]

Yikes. How are you going to read an accurate range off the logarithmic scale of the A-scope?

Geez man, look at the link I provided. That mod puts an accurate calibrated scale on the A-scope. It's no longer logrithmic. That's a tradeoff I know, as in reality you do have the range ticker, but getting that to work with *insert any major mod here* is a real pain as it requires a model edit :(. Even if the exact method isn't reproduced, the result is the same.

Actually, I've never seen a fifth of your 500 contacts.

I've seen around 100 contacts before, or there would be (maybe more!) if I had radar. Playing RSRD at the start of my s-boat campaign, I came across a Philippines invasion force just as I was getting ready to squeeze into base for more fuel. I didn't get an exact count, but there was 2 convoys of about 50 ships (not counting escorts) one after another! Too bad I only had 4 bow tubes :wah:.

As far as tracking a single contact out of that group goes, there's inherent error in that method as well. It's *tough* to get the same ship consistently when faced with a whole bucket load of tightly grouped contacts.

Any way you want to cut it, radar contacts in a real submarine would be plotted with greater accuracy than our automatic nav map.

I'm willing to bet that my accuracy is similar to the accuracy of the real thing. The tools may be slightly less precise but there's a whole mess of radar effects we don't have to worry about here. Seriously, *check the link*. It's not that hard to do your own plotting with radar if you've got the tools.

As far as *any* other tracking system goes, the map contacts are far, far, far too accurate.

I can understand using map contacts to help account for the very broken stock radar. If you're modded though, in my eyes it's a crutch and nothing more as the tools to do it correctly are readily available.

One could argue that not plotting your own contacts is really the same as using the automatic tdc. The only real difference between automatic and manual tdc, if you've done everything correctly is that doing it yourself requires setting the dials which is something the tdc operator, not the captain should do. Again here, the difference is that doing it yourself means that you can make mistakes while in automatic mode it's flawless.

Actually, come to think of it, the automatic tdc is more error prone than the automatic plotting is as high gyro angles do not necessarily hit. Put that in your pipe and smoke it ;).

[Rip]

Geez man, look at the link I provided. That mod puts an accurate calibrated scale on the A-scope. It's no longer logrithmic. That's a tradeoff I know, as in reality you do have the range ticker, but getting that to work with *insert any major mod here* is a real pain as it requires a model edit :(. Even if the exact method isn't reproduced, the result is the same.



I've seen around 100 contacts before, or there would be (maybe more!) if I had radar. Playing RSRD at the start of my s-boat campaign, I came across a Philippines invasion force just as I was getting ready to squeeze into base for more fuel. I didn't get an exact count, but there was 2 convoys of about 50 ships (not counting escorts) one after another! Too bad I only had 4 bow tubes :wah:.

As far as tracking a single contact out of that group goes, there's inherent error in that method as well. It's *tough* to get the same ship consistently when faced with a whole bucket load of tightly grouped contacts.



I'm willing to bet that my accuracy is similar to the accuracy of the real thing. The tools may be slightly less precise but there's a whole mess of radar effects we don't have to worry about here. Seriously, *check the link*. It's not that hard to do your own plotting with radar if you've got the tools.

As far as *any* other tracking system goes, the map contacts are far, far, far too accurate.

I can understand using map contacts to help account for the very broken stock radar. If you're modded though, in my eyes it's a crutch and nothing more as the tools to do it correctly are readily available.

One could argue that not plotting your own contacts is really the same as using the automatic tdc. The only real difference between automatic and manual tdc, if you've done everything correctly is that doing it yourself requires setting the dials which is something the tdc operator, not the captain should do. Again here, the difference is that doing it yourself means that you can make mistakes while in automatic mode it's flawless.

Actually, come to think of it, the automatic tdc is more error prone than the automatic plotting is as high gyro angles do not necessarily hit. Put that in your pipe and smoke it ;).

It seems you are hung up on some belief the player should observe the radar and plot the contacts. Why? As RR said the captain would NEVER observe radar contacts and plot them. That is the crews job. The only way this makes sense is if you believe the crew plotting radar contacts would result in more error than letting map contacts do it. As someone who has worked a submarine radar to plot nearly exact contact positions and even calculate near perfect solutions on a maneuvering board without assistance not to mention navigate about as accurate as any method excluding GPS I think map contacts ala TMO is about as close to reality as we can get. The only time I ever saw the captain or any other officer come lear at my radar scope was if I had screwed up and they were about to "counsel" me on my shortcomings. :88)

[ColonelSandersLite]

about as accurate as any method excluding GPS

That's the trouble in my eyes. It *is* gps, not WWII tech. Even with the TMO charting which has literally no margin of error at all, it's far to perfect.


The only time I ever saw the captain or any other officer come lear at my radar scope was if I had screwed up and they were about to "counsel" me on my shortcomings. :88)

Aside from the fact that you state plainly that screwups are made IRL, which they are not with automatic plotting, that's a good point, and I can see that as a valid argument. But with that same argument comes the flip side of the coin that the captain's job is not to operate the tdc as well.

If you leave everything that was up to the crew to be actually up to them, you would basically just giving helm orders and telling the crew what target to engage with what weaponry. Potentially an interesting way to play a bit, but honestly it would get pretty boring pretty fast IMHO. You would spend 90% of an engagement in time compression simply because there's nothing to do!

Now that I'm on that subject though, I think I just might start a career and attempt to play it like that just to try it.

Anyways, what else is there to do when tracking a target via radar or even sonar? Literally no time pressure and it's not that hard. I'm willing to bet that because I can in effect teleport from station to station, I can easily plot a target just as quickly as a real crew could, and my accuracy is pretty solid, again considering it's 1943 not 1983.

I do admit that in the end it depends on what you want for immersion. The game is only semi-realistic no matter how many mods you throw at it and that's not going to change. I just really don't see the point that manual tdc is somehow more realistic than manual plotting as the captain doesn't do either one IRL. In fact, 90% of a captain's job is simply not modeled in game anyways. The sim only really portrays combat time, which is maybe say 0.5% (number pulled out of my rear end so take with a grain of salt) of the a wartime captains total time on ship.

Anyways, I think I rambled a bit and I apologize for that.

[Rockin Robbins]

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. And the devs themselves seem to have disagreed, and agreed to disagree :D because they left the option available for the player to man every station that is available (that's a self-justifying statement if I ever saw one, they made every option available that they made available-----DUH!:88) Not the greatest sentence I've ever not penned) so the devs themselves left open the question of "what is realistic?"

If they couldn't come to a unanimous conclusion I guess we shouldn't knock ourselves out trying to accomplish the same thing. Suffice it to say that there are paths of reasoning for either way of thinking.

"What is realism" is the same way. If you strictly model the sub after Beery, "the vast majority of subs served throughout the war and only a tiny percentage fell prey to depth charges" then, as he did, the sub will be nearly impervious to depth charges. Many a time in the original RFB I sat at periscope depth firing away as depth charges fell all around me, tales "told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Historically accurate in terms of percentage of survival. Ridiculous in terms of realistic player behavior.

But Beery's construction was very defensible. It was the end of RFB for me until the present incarnation. I realized that real sub captains did not behave as I did and that made the RFB model laughable.

Many times in simulation we have to choose between realistic outcome and realistic behavior. There is often little middle ground.

Actually, Morton and O'Kane DID revolve their functions around the TDC and not the traditional captain's periscope duties, preferring to let their XO man the scope while they concentrated on tactical factors.

[Diopos]

...
Many times in simulation we have to choose between realistic outcome and realistic behavior. There is often little middle ground.
...


Just a matter of semantics (or not:hmmm:). What is the difference between a "game" and a "simulation"?. In designing a "game" you tune the whole project based on anticipated results, ie taking into account the situation you wish to recreate or as you said realistic outcome. For example, in designing a Pacific Theater Sub "game" you could devise a "hit table" based on statistical data of the era. You could make the "table" more interesting by adding a modifier here and there (sub class, torpedo type, captain/crew experience, etc). But in most cases you will designing based on results. A simulation on the other hand should be designed based on "first" principles. If I recreate a sub's movement, the "optics" of the periscope, the mechanics of firing and movement of a torpedo, the influence of the "elements" (sea, air, light/dark, pressure etc) and so on then I'm designing a simulation. A success of a simulation is, putting it in your words, the extent it recreates realistic behavior.
SHIV as many other commercial war-games is somewhere in between.

As for "realistic behavior" regarding "contacts", we would not be even discussing it, if by design there were inherent "inaccuracies" based on actual response of the various sensors (sonar, radar and even "eyes" on watch :DL). Actually you don't need to know if the convoy's escorts are 29 or 35 km away to plot for intercept. Your lookouts must be on high alert either way. If at closer ranges or better ambient conditions sensors had greater accuracy then OK!

As for the player being able to "man" various posts on the sub... well that's somewhat of a necessity. If sonar or deck guns were unusable by the player I wonder what would be the commercial impact of the game. And, in a sense, a player is "rewarded" for operating them himself (doesn't matter if your sonar man is deaf you are are listening the distant contacts yourself!).

[Sevrin]

Hmm, that was a hornet's nest... :-?

So basically we are right back where we started; some maintain that "contact updates" are as close as we can get, while others disagree, and then the whole issue devolves into 'what is a simulation', 'what are the variables and weaknesses or limits thereof...'

Endless debate...

[Diopos]

...
Endless debate...

Well SUBSIM's forum is a ... forum after all !! Great place to learn the tricks of the trade and have "Endless debates".:)

BTW I play with no contacts on.

[Sevrin]

Yes indeed! :rock:

[Hitman]

Since I did the mod that started the last discussion here, I'd like to throw my 2 cents on this:

cent #1: Yes, the captain never actually looked at the radar screen, but instead only at the resulting plot, RR is right :up: And also, with real radar and an experienced operator manning it, the plot would be as accurate as in the game with map contact updates off, or at least with the limited ones in TMO. If we are to simulate the plotting aboard WW2 US submarines AFTER radar, then TMO is the best way. (Before radar is a different matter, as they only had the stadimeter readings)

cent #2: The above does not mean that people can actually have fun doing things in the submarine else than what the captain strictly did. For that purpose, this radar mod was created. I know that the plot was kept by a dedicated guy, but hey! it was a senior petty officer who took care of the watch cycles and however some people find it interesting to toss around with crew icons and dragging them from slot to slot themselves (Something I personally do not like at all).

So I say, the more things we can do manually if we choose to, the better for the game. For don't forget that those guys who commanded the submarines, had earlier been the officer who kept the plot and learned how to interpretate it that way ... something we all "instant captains" don't benefit from :up:

[Sevrin]

If we are to simulate the plotting aboard WW2 US submarines AFTER radar, then TMO is the best way. (Before radar is a different matter, as they only had the stadimeter readings)


That's exactly what I wanted to know.

Although I'm sure it won't be long before someone pounces on that and says otherwise; starting the debate all over again... :03:

[Rockin Robbins]

The bottom line is that options are good. Even more options would be better! High on the wish list would be sensor accuracy (eyes included as sensors here) weighted by conditions, experience and inherent accuracy of the device in use. We don't have that, so we are stuck with our choices.

But the fact that we have choices in how we deal with this deficiency is very good. Many gemes/simulations force players into straightjackets and then tell them to have fun. The fact that this game allows us to discuss and implement differences of opinion is significant and good.

[Wilcke]

Would like to add that there are currently a nice crop of options for folks when it comes to the plot. Depending on mood I start careers that are pretty much tactical maneuver focused, others that are TDC focused or some where I just go out there and sink stuff and let the crew do all the work.

It would be really neat if you could assign an AI skipper and just do sonar, radar or fire control, that would be cool angle.

Something for everyone!

[ColonelSandersLite]

It would be really neat if you could assign an AI skipper and just do sonar, radar or fire control, that would be cool angle.

What would be really, really neat is if you could have multiple players in the same boat in multiplayer and run a career like that. Hell, just 2 players would make the workload much better with semi-intelligent division of tasks.

[Rockin Robbins]

YES!!!! A single sub with multiple crewmember slots would be one of the finest things that could be done. Then a complete overhaul of the business model from a revolutionary to an evolutionary model, with on-line subscription-based pay scheme and continuous progression of a single subsim...

The drink coaster business model is the chief source of the difficulties we have. Rather than optimize, game companies have to release a brand new game, junking the existing work, in order to have an income stream. That's inherently destructive for a simulation, although it works well for popcorn
FPS games.

[I'm goin' down]

I went to the navy recruiters to volunteer. I asked about Richard O'Kane and Mr. Cromwell. They had never heard of them. (I am sure they were joking.) I told them that I preferred if I did not leave home for my sea duty, and that I could deal with captaining my assigned boat from home, and that I am familiar with ruining a boat from the computer in my bedroom. I asked if they wouldn't mind is I commanded my boat from my bedroom computer, and would certainly report when my crew returned from each mission. Also, I told them I was in contact with other skippers via the Subsim link if the assigned boat gave me problems. They said they would speak to their commanders and get back to me. I haven't heard a thing from them for a month. Today, I got a letter from the Marines. The navy must be overstaffed, because it looks like they have too many captains. They must have notified the marines. (They have a lot of nerve.) Darn, I was hoping to conduct operations in the ocean between Afghanistan and Pakistan and in the Khyber Straights.:salute:

[Munchausen]

:cool: You can always volunteer to fly one of those remote spy/bomber planes.