Sonar in Subcommand seawolf realistic?

[fastbikkel]

I love to operate the sonar manually, but im losing my interest already.
I know how to assign trackers and to determine which is the true target. (isolate the ambiguous sound)

What i dont understand, i can find targets from lets say 45km distance.
Against a full navy enemy fleet, i can find a max of 3 -5 targets, but when i put the auto crew on, it finds a whopping 10 targets and from greater distance.

When i return to the sonar waterfall display, select the towed or sphere array, i can only see a few traces. I have the top display on STA, the lower on ITA or even LTA. But nothing shows, apart from the few targets i already spotted.
Maybe im a n00b on this, but shouldn't i see the same targets as the auto crew?
I always believed a human could do it better than the AI.
But if the autocrew can find more targets from greater distance (without visible trace on the waterfall) then what is the use of doing i manually??

It realy is weird to me. To me it seems the game is limited in showing detailed sounds on the waterfall and right now i would love a more advanced sub sim.
Any ideas on this? Does sonar work better in Dangerous Waters maybe?

[fastbikkel]

Extra info :
I saw a series on the HMS Conqueror during the Falklands conflict.
It sunk the General Belgrano.

When the Conqueror arrived in the area, they picked up the Belgrano from a 150km's distance already.

Now that may be an exception, also because the Belgrano was an old and probably noisy ship, but i should at least be able to manually pick up targets up to 80km's or something.

[Robsoie]

That was a big annoyance to me too, as i really like to do the detection myself, i find the game more fun this way.
I mentionned this into this thread 2 years ago :
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=138878

And indeed the sonar auto-crew is obviously able to use some sound isolating equipment for long range that you can't use yourself as Frame57 thought, as it can detect contact that does not appear for you anywhere on the waterfalls and other sonars.

But strangely, often the auto-crew will be unable to detect something that is obviously appearing on the waterfall and sonars.
I guess there's something wrong in the auto-crew code that was never patched.

[fastbikkel]

Thanks for the info, i've read through your old post.
I put the auto crew back on again, there is still fun in playing SC, but the sonar thing is useless now to me.

Im hoping a new nuclear sub sim will appear one day.

I like WW2 subsims too, but nuclear has the greatest charm on me.

[TorpedoMo]

Try to detect contacts first on narrowband sonar. Mostly you can detect and track a contacs low frequency signature (often just one line) before you can see a contac or assign a tracker on the broadband sonar (waterfall display).
I use the narrowband sonar to find contact if I have no contact on broadband, and that's as far as I know the autocrew also is doing. So if you switch autocrew on you wonder they suddenly mark contacs in broadband which are actually marked in narrowband. The tracker of course also appears on broadband, so you may think autocrew can detect contacs you don't even see.

[fastbikkel]

THanks for the answer, i will certainly take a look at that.
Sounds interesting for sure.