[TEC] Manual TDC Tutorial For SH5 with No Map contacts

[emtguf]

TDC Tutorial For SH5 with No Map contacts.

This tutorial will show how to use the Manual TDC with no Map contacts, and using the map to plot your targets course, speed, aob etc....
I am also including the mission I made to do this tutorial on so you can practice with it. http://www.filefront.com/15832095/TDC_Tutorial-_Mission.rar/
This missions is JSGME ready so just unrar into your mods folder.

First thing is first. The Stadimeter is broken right now so it can be tricky getting accurate ranges from it alone. The ship I am using in this tutorial is a Troop transport. To get the correct stadimeter reading on this ship you must use the top of the bridge roof. This will get you pretty close. Others it is the funnels, ans still again others the Masts. So takes some practice to remember what is measured from what.

Ok first screen shot shows taking the first stadimeter reading. I am a little high in the reading so it is a bit off true distance.

http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/67/sh51.png

For this next screenshot what I am doing is dragging off a ruler line in the middle of my pariscope view as this is basically where the target is. Speaking of which I am working on a mod to add a compass to the map so you dont have to go off of the sight line and can draw to actual coordinates. Once you get to the range mark it.

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/3282/sh52.png

For this next shot you can see that I am moving my bearing +10 degrees. I wait here for the ship to pass and take another stadimter reading.
Once again entering that data onto the map.

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/5075/sh53.png

For the next shot I am taking a 3rd reading. This is a few minutes later. I take a stadimeter reading, and plot it onto my map.

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/4230/sh54.png

now After getting that info I go to the large map screen to plot out the course. As you can see I basically draw a line out taking the average distance to get a straight path, since your range estimates will be off some. Draw out the line and there is your course. To get your AOB draw a protractor line from your ships line (the north/south ruler mark) and then toward the target ships course.

http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/3908/sh55.png

Speed.... This is somethign that can be quite tricky to get. Looking at the screenshot you can see that the computer thinks it is going at 12 knots after all my range data. Well I want to make sure so I am going to look at it another way. Get the mod that adds data to the Recog manual (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=1606) install this mod.....
So now open up the manual and find your target ships length. As you can see here it is 147.

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/4023/sh56.png

Now what you want to do is time how long it takes the ship to pass your scope bow to stern. So open up your stopwatch, and as soon as the bow hits your scope mark start timing.

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/8315/sh57.png

Now you can see that it took 32 seconds to pass. stop counting the second the stern passes the mark.

http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/9516/sh58.png

now time for a little math. take the ships length (147) and divide it by how many seconds it took to pass (32) 147/32. Should come up with 4.59 and some change. Round up since it is over .50 and you get 5, now simply double that and you have the ships knots at 10kts. This method only works if you are stopped or If you are at a 000 bearing to the target. Anything off of there and your ships speed affects it.

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/3144/sh5923.png

I generally take one more stadimeter reading to get a good final distance and let the fish fly.

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/8968/sh510.png

And here is the death hit.

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/1905/sh511.png

This method works well considering that the stadimeter is not quite correct. I use this for 90degree shots, and off shots as well. Takes some getting used to and the further out the more precise you need to be.
Hopefully this helps people get away from relying on the Map contacts, and understand some of the easier methods to gather the data without using map contacts.
Any questions drop me a line or ask here.
Good luck all.

[reaper7]

Excellent tutorial emtguf. I have given up playing with map contacts off myself. For the reason that notepad in sonar is broken in current patch and also the stadimeter like you say is not reliable as it takes its reading from different point on different ship's. Hopefully the Dev's patch these soon.
Then full realism with no map contacts will be a reality. :yeah:

Edit: Looking forward to the compass mod you mention in the tutorial.

[emtguf]

Thanks Reaper!

I am currently working on a spreadsheet showing which target points get the most accurate readings on all in game ships.making missions for them all and at a set distance then recording the data. This of course will take some time to get all put together.

Although After comparing quite a bit a data there is no easy way to put it out.
Some ships are mast, some funnel, some roof, some 3/4 mast, some 1/2 mast.
This comes from putting ships at 1000 meters and comparing the stadimeter data. So to get pretty close you get

1) small warships mast
2) small freighters funnel
3) medium warships 3/4 mast
4) large warships roof or deck (carrier)
5) large freighter 1/2 mast or 1/2 funnel
6) medium freighter funnel.

As you can see it is all over the place.

[reaper7]

Thanks Reaper!

I am currently working on a spreadsheet showing which target points get the most accurate readings on all in game ships.making missions for them all and at a set distance then recording the data. This of course will take some time to get all put together.

Although After comparing quite a bit a data there is no easy way to put it out.
Some ships are mast, some funnel, some roof, some 3/4 mast, some 1/2 mast.
This comes from putting ships at 1000 meters and comparing the stadimeter data. So to get pretty close you get

1) small warships mast
2) small freighters funnel
3) medium warships 3/4 mast
4) large warships roof or deck (carrier)
5) large freighter 1/2 mast or 1/2 funnel
6) medium freighter funnel.

As you can see it is all over the place.

Thats the concensis on it alright, I wonder if this is the same with the draft measurments?
If you do get a list of what point on what ships, any chance you could PM me, I could add the info to my Ship Recognition Mod as a temp solution till devs fix the mast heights (if they ever do). :up:

[gutted]

A Note on your speed esitmation:
The correct speed for 32 seconds is 9kts (not 10). Dont round it. As you can see in the screen, you aimed for the center and hit the front.

4.59 * 2 = 9.18kts.

To be wholly accurate though:

147m in 32 seconds = 4.59375 meters per second.

Since 1 mps = 1.9438449knots:
4.59375 * 1.94384449 = 8.92953564 knots

If you want to make the math simpler just divide length by seconds then multiply by 1.94.


I've alread done all this with the speed solver utility in my solution solver program (in my sig).

I even made a quick chart here (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=164469)


Nice tutorial, but just wanted to point that out. 1 kt can be a big difference depending on the range & crossing angle.

[gutted]

As for the bearing mod you mentioned.. are you talking about a compass around your ship? because there is already one out. Though it only goes to 1000m so is only useful when the map is zoomed in close. I also noticed it's ever slightly "off". It's not aligned perfectly (.ie 0 is not TRUE 0), it's very very close, but not quite.

What i would REALLY REALLY like, is to have a faint white line going down the middle of the scope cone on the TAI map.

That would be awesome.

[emtguf]

Actually I didn't shoot at the center I shot a little in front of it. The screen is after I took my last stadimeter reading and already fired one torp as you can see from the map screen it is already on its way. But yes I understand what you are saying.

What bearing mod are you speaking of? Don't see it in the DLs
Been trying to find everything for the ship icon in the menu editor, but having trouble finding it. I did remake the DDS file for the ship placement on the map for a 3000m range however so far not able to get it to show up.

[Onkel Neal]

Brilliant! :up:

[emtguf]

Neal was it you awhile back talking about helping out on the Cavalla?
Noticed you are in Houston and seem to remember something about that.

[Indietro]

Is it just me or it's true that on every input of stadimeter the AOB and Speed measurements are being reset to 0 regardless of TDC panel being locked\unlocked ?
Using OLDStyleControls 1.3.1 by TheDarkWraith

[Bilge_Rat]

very nice tutorial. Great work.

[emtguf]

Is it just me or it's true that on every input of stadimeter the AOB and Speed measurements are being reset to 0 regardless of TDC panel being locked\unlocked ?
Using OLDStyleControls 1.3.1 by TheDarkWraith


Are you using the included TDC with that mod? I noticed with the TDC active it resets the AOB after stadimeter readings. I believe there is an option to not use the TDC.
So you have 2 options I guess either wait to do AOB till after final stadimeter reading, or don't use the TDC at this point.
The TDC is quite young and im sure Darkwraith will get it all figured out soon.

[Indietro]

Are you using the included TDC with that mod? I noticed with the TDC active it resets the AOB after stadimeter readings. I believe there is an option to not use the TDC.
So you have 2 options I guess either wait to do AOB till after final stadimeter reading, or don't use the TDC at this point.
The TDC is quite young and im sure Darkwraith will get it all figured out soon.

Yeah I'm using TDC, I hope he's aware about this problem and hopefully it will get fixed soon.

[emtguf]

I'll shoot him a PM and make sure he is aware. I'm sure he is though he is a bright guy.

[hackneygaz e12]

JUST CHECKED OUT YOUR MANUAL TDC. VERY CLEAR AND CONCISE, WAS GETTIMG THE HUMP WITH SH5 BUT MIGHT GIVE IT A GO AGAIN AND TRY THIS OUT :salute:

[UF582151]

For what its worth, a way around the stadimeter bug I read somewhere is as follows (I have still to try but apparently it works)

The bug right now is that no matter what ship you identify the stadimeter is using a standard 20 m mast height. So the rule of the thumb to get the accurate distance is:

stadimeter_reading x real_mast_height / 20

I'll let you know when I try it a few times see if the really works.

[vois2]

Brilliant. Kudos to you, emtguf.

Yet another reason that Subsim is the friendliest and best place on the interwebs.

[Vaga]

The Stadimeter is broken right now so it can be tricky getting accurate ranges from it alone.


Nice tutorial however I believe this statement is wrong and feel free bash me on this however the Stadimeter is not broken at all. Features of ships were altered in WW2 to help make it harder to target a ship. Sometimes they would extend the length of the mast or mak something shorter if possible. This way the germans had to keep on their toes and find ways to properly target a ship. This is in fact a built in feature of the game to make targetting harder.

You have to learn from experience where to aim at a target and not expect a standard location on every ship. The only problem with this feature is it that I doubt ships were so varied from the start of the war. It would have taken a while to modify the ships. Allot of the time it was the crew on the ship that made the changes so they could make the trips with a smallest amount of danger possible.

However at the start of the war I am sure they did not have a detailed accurate mesurment on every ship adding to the problem of getting an accurate range.

The only way to ensure an accurate range was experience and trying several methods of targetting. You had to get a feel for how far away something was and if your range was accurate and if they altered the ship by extending the mast or funnels. They could even add more metal to the command deck.

The best thing for getting an accurate reading is experience and knowing what to aim at. Since it would be hard to simulate all the possible changes that could be done to modify the ship (making the ship taller and shorter)
and model them in game it was easier to just make one model and have you figure out what to aim for.

[TheDarkWraith]

Nice tutorial however I believe this statement is wrong and feel free bash me on this however the Stadimeter is not broken at all. Features of ships were altered in WW2 to help make it harder to target a ship. Sometimes they would extend the length of the mast or mak something shorter if possible. This way the germans had to keep on their toes and find ways to properly target a ship. This is in fact a built in feature of the game to make targetting harder.

You have to learn from experience where to aim at a target and not expect a standard location on every ship. The only problem with this feature is it that I doubt ships were so varied from the start of the war. It would have taken a while to modify the ships. Allot of the time it was the crew on the ship that made the changes so they could make the trips with a smallest amount of danger possible.

However at the start of the war I am sure they did not have a detailed accurate mesurment on every ship adding to the problem of getting an accurate range.

The only way to ensure an accurate range was experience and trying several methods of targetting. You had to get a feel for how far away something was and if your range was accurate and if they altered the ship by extending the mast or funnels. They could even add more metal to the command deck.

The best thing for getting an accurate reading is experience and knowing what to aim at. Since it would be hard to simulate all the possible changes that could be done to modify the ship (making the ship taller and shorter)
and model them in game it was easier to just make one model and have you figure out what to aim for.

statement about stadimeter being broken is correct. There is a stock bug of target's mast height being stuck at 20m no matter what ship you select in the recognition manual. This will cause totally inaccurate stadimeter readings unless of course the ship has a mast height of 20m.

I have a totally automatic fix for it in my UIs mod. Once you select the ship from the recognition the mast height is automatically set for you to the correct value so that when you use the stadimeter you get correct range readings (if you use the stadimeter correctly that is :03:)

[Zedi]

... or a manual solution through ERMc (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=172187) where I draw a green line in the rec manual where the stadimeter will give the correct range to every ship in the game as shown bellow.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4144/4973538068_afe9608e21_b.jpg

The beauty in this is that it gives a lot of room for errors. Closer you are, better values you get but also the risk to be spotted will increase dramatically, so it add a great level of realism. If the target is far away, you will have a hard time to measure the range and the chances to get a perfect shot are minimal. Also, in stormy condition you will need to work hard to get these values, no computer will do the job for you.

So, no more millions of tons sunk in 1 patrol, exactly as it was in real life. Work hard and be proud of your achievements.

[Redroth]

Tryed downloading your mission and using it however the mission starts you in a position where the ship intended is already aware of you and making evasive manovers. making it very hard to use the TDC

[AndreyE]

Can't download it anywhere ^(

[keith_uk]

My stadimeter seems to be broken. I put the line on the ships water line, but when i click on range in the TDC, i can only scroll the second line DOWNWARDS, below the first water line and not above it to the mast top.

Anyone have any idea whats going on with this?

Keith.