Hydrophone range

[nev_vern]

Trying to do a hydrophone only attack using a self made mission, but the hydrophone range is very small compared to the tutorials I have seen where they are roughly 20nm. By the time anything gets picked up on the hydrophone the enemy is almost on top of me.

Why is this? Is it a bug? :hmmm:

[Armistead]

Have you tried using the sonar stations yourself?

[nev_vern]

Yes m8. When my Sonar officer never picked anything up I fired him and decided to do all the dirty work myself. I estimated the range to be about 5nm when I finally picked him up, which is strange.

BTW, I am only using SH4 + U-Boat Missions and a couple of small mods that have nothing to do with the game code, or at least would not modify the hydrophone range.

[razark]

Weather conditions? Are you using the station yourself, or using the crew?

[nev_vern]

Both, and the weather conditions are Calm and Sunny.

[Pisces]

What is your depth at that time. The hydrophone only kicks in below a certain depth, and your sub might be bobbing up above it depending on wave action and your speed. Without the popular mods stock SH4 should have unimpeded hydrophone coverage. Or the background noise might be to loud for you.

[Pisces]

What is your depth at that time. The hydrophone works below a certain depth, and your sub might be bobbing up above it depending on wave action and your speed. Without the popular mods stock SH4 should have unimpeded hydrophone coverage. Or the background noise might be to loud for you.

[nev_vern]

I was at a dead stop, and at PD, maybe that depth is too shallow then?

:runs off to see what happens at a deeper depth:

[irR4tiOn4L]

Dont dive too deep though because diving below a thermal layer would (or at least should) also make it hard to pick up contacts.

[Armistead]

Not sure of the stock game, but I don't think passing the thermal layer has any effect on sonar, it doesn't in any of the megamods.

Being on the surface the hydrophones work fine under most circumstances. The S boat doesn't work on the surface. A small depth issue may apply and most subs sonar works fine on the surface. In stock many of the subs almost ride on top the water, this can be a problem.

However, being at scope depth, I don't see that you would have a problem at any level. You should be able to hear ships yourself in the contact zone, 20NM's or so.

They're are a few ships when they run below 7kts, they don't show on sonar.

[jasond2350]

I'm new to this game and have no idea what to do. I dont think my sonar works. I cant ever hear any ships. Any advice?

[nev_vern]

Jason, you must point your Hydrophone towards an enemy ship, when you can hear its engines you can then use the sonar to ping the target giving its range.

Back to my problem....

I tried again, and used the Hydrophone as you would, and a target appeared as 'unknown' on the notepad in the upper left corner, but was unable to hear anything what so ever, at least not until it was closer to me.

When I asked my crew to 'follow nearest contact' he responded with "SO No sound contact"

[Pisces]

Have you managed to find it and identify the unit? Maybe the unit has a bug with it's soundeffects.

Which 'little' mods do you have exactly? Added new models? Maybe that bug could be lying there. That doesn't change the hydrophone code or sensitivity, but could lack an important setting for the sound to work.

[Dogfish40]

Ahoy Vern,
Exactly what mods are you using? I've had a couple of seemingly innocent mods knock out my hydrophones completely. Although one was a sound mod it still made no sense. Also, having your periscope up might effect the hydrophones depending on certain conditions (like what mods are up). Having visual contact with a ship in any form (periscope, crew-watch) might take down the hydro-phones. I may be mistaken about this but I remember reading a post and one of the modders was explaining that the game will use these resources in some kind of order, so if your radar tracks an aircraft, once the crew spots the plane, the contact on the map is actually the visual contact. There is a also a mod out there that fixes a problem with certain ships not being picked up by the hydrophones, I'll see if I can locate it.
Good Luck:salute:
D40
Ps; When you say a target appears 'unknown' and your crew says "no sound contacts". I have this happen all the time, I won't get a "hit" until I head in the direction of the contact for a time. Finally, the SO will call it out. However, it's still always a pretty good distance away.

[nev_vern]

The Mods I have are the 3000 Yards Bearing Plotter and Magnified Hud Dials. Thats it.

The Unit I am tracking down is a Large Modern Composite Freighter.

My Radar Officer picks up the contact at roughly 19nm heading 116 relative to my ship.

I turn off the radar, then I select heading 116 in the Hydrophone and click "Follow nearest contact" with a reply "SO No sound contact"

But if I select heading 116 with the Hydrophone and click "Report Contacts" I will then get a reply "SO nearest sound contact: Merchant moving slow! Closing! Bearing 116! Long Range!" I just checked that I do not need to move the Hydrophone to 116 to use the "Report Contacts" But I still can not hear anything when I do this manually. These officers must have super human abilities.

I thought, from my understanding that selecting "Follow nearest contact" tells the officer to keep me updated at predetermined intervals of where the merchant is? Of course, "Follow nearest contact" does work when the merchant is closer to my position.

Maybe what I am experiencing is normal, but the noobness within me somehow tells me it is wrong? (Translation: I am experiencing what should happen rather than what I think should happen)

My only previous experience of SH is in SH3 where I thought it was too difficult and never sunk anything and only played it for a short time before deleting and trashing the CD. But, as I am a simulator freak I decided to get SH4 and try and learn it properly. I already have learnt much more in using SH4 for a week than what I learnt in SH3 in a couple of months. I can actually blow a ship out of the water but that is a thanx to the awesome video tutorials, something I never had in SH3 when it first came out.

P.S I think the manual sucks big time. It states very clearly how to use the software, but explains nothing of how to play. So glad I found this site.

[Dogfish40]

The Mods I have are the 3000 Yards Bearing Plotter and Magnified Hud Dials. Thats it.

The Unit I am tracking down is a Large Modern Composite Freighter.

My Radar Officer picks up the contact at roughly 19nm heading 116 relative to my ship.

I turn off the radar, then I select heading 116 in the Hydrophone and click "Follow nearest contact" with a reply "SO No sound contact"

But if I select heading 116 with the Hydrophone and click "Report Contacts" I will then get a reply "SO nearest sound contact: Merchant moving slow! Closing! Bearing 116! Long Range!" I just checked that I do not need to move the Hydrophone to 116 to use the "Report Contacts" But I still can not hear anything when I do this manually. These officers must have super human abilities.

I thought, from my understanding that selecting "Follow nearest contact" tells the officer to keep me updated at predetermined intervals of where the merchant is? Of course, "Follow nearest contact" does work when the merchant is closer to my position.

Maybe what I am experiencing is normal, but the noobness within me somehow tells me it is wrong? (Translation: I am experiencing what should happen rather than what I think should happen)

My only previous experience of SH is in SH3 where I thought it was too difficult and never sunk anything and only played it for a short time before deleting and trashing the CD. But, as I am a simulator freak I decided to get SH4 and try and learn it properly. I already have learnt much more in using SH4 for a week than what I learnt in SH3 in a couple of months. I can actually blow a ship out of the water but that is a thanx to the awesome video tutorials, something I never had in SH3 when it first came out.

P.S I think the manual sucks big time. It states very clearly how to use the software, but explains nothing of how to play. So glad I found this site.

It doesn't sound quite right that's for sure. You should be able to hear the sound from the hydrophone, espeicially if the SO is hearing it. In fact, you should be able to hear the hydrophone contacts before the SO hears them. At least that's my experiance. As for as the mods you have, I agree, they shouldn't have any effect on this.
The only other thing I can suggest is maybe trying a reload if nothing else works, (I'm sure I read that your running at least 1.4).
Yeah, the manual really is an unfinished work but me and a lot of other sim skippers learned from reading and sharing on this forum, it's the best I've ever had the privlige of using. I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with Auto_targeting when I started playing and now I'm having loads of fun playing this game, in fact it takes up a bit too much of my time if you ask my wife.
Good luck and Good Hunting.
D40:salute:

[nev_vern]

Yeah, I am using 1.5

You said: "The only other thing I can suggest is maybe trying a reload if nothing else works"

What does this mean exactly? Reinstall? or just reload the mission?

If its the latter then it does not do anything as it is a simple mission that I created with a single merchant so that I can learn the principles of solution solving using the different techniques available before I go into battle proper.

[WernherVonTrapp]

How big is this vessel that you're trying to track? I've noticed (on a few occasions) that small vessels travelling slowly in rough seas, and heading toward you with screws behind them (as opposed to broadside or moving away), are sometimes difficult (or even impossible) to pick up on sonar until they're much closer.

[nev_vern]

The merchant is just over 7000 tonnes, and moving towards me. (Large modern composite freighter)

[Dogfish40]

:stare:I'll be danged if it didn't just happen to me. I got a hit on a IJN merchant and I heard it through the Hydrophones. Then as I'm coming back into Manila, I get a hit on an Allied merchant and the SO calls it out so I go down for a listen and it's not there.:06: It's on the map, I can ask for the latest bearing and the SO pops it off but if I try and hear it personally,,,,nothing. I think I'm going to try and find that fix myself!!
If I find the magic fix, I'll post it here.
D40:salute:

[nev_vern]

Keep me posted on that magic fix will ya buddy?

At least you'r SO acknowledges the contact. The only person that shouts 'Ship Ahoy!' is my RA. And like I said earlier, eventually my SO does report, but the contact is within 10nm by that time.

But, saying that, even with my problems I guess I am not doing too badly. Started my first career in 1944 and was ordered to patrol off the coast of Tokyo. First contact were a couple of small fishing boats, so I thought, what the hell, they would probably give my position away if I let them go so I surfaced and took both of them out with my machine gun.

Second contact was a Passenger Liner and I decided to take that out by using the stadimeter approach to gather speed, bearing and AoB. 3 of my 4 fish hit which I was a little happy about because the sea was a little choppy making the use of the stad' a little tricky.

And my third contact was a little ship weighing in at just over 1000 tonnes, cant remember the name. And I decided to take this one out with the Dick OKane method. Both of my fish hit.

4 boats, 3 attack methods, and one lost fish out of 6. All in all a good start to my career and I still have some ways to go before I finish my first patrol off the coast of Japan.

I guess learning how to get a solution and attack a ship in a very simple user created mission was worthwhile after all. (Manual Targeting = ON)

[Dogfish40]

What get's me is that it's just that one ship. After a time I pick up another as I'm going into refit, this one I can hear just fine. Both my SO and Me personally, it's on the map as well.
I hope I can find the problem or the fix. I have a lot of mods installed and I would hate to find that any of them is to blame.
More shall be revealed...
D40:salute:

[Armistead]

They're a few bugged ships in stock when under 7kts don't show up on sonar...just can't remember which ones.

[WernherVonTrapp]

They're a few bugged ships in stock when under 7kts don't show up on sonar...just can't remember which ones.Yeah, now that you mention it:hmmm:, I vaguely remember something like that in the stock version. The funny thing is that, sometimes you can hear them, sometimes you cannot. Could be the same ship on different occasions in fact. I have a vague memory of a subchaser doing 5 knots that I could not hear on sonar. Didn't have a visual on him at the time either. It wasn't until he came into PS view that I could identify the boat and it's speed. If that's the case, I think it's all up to the throw of the dice.