What Controls the escort AI?

[accipiter0600]

I was playing a campaign on "realistic" and found the escort to be a bit "sensitive" in their detection abilities. They were able to spot my periscope in stormy weather at 500 meters.

They also seemed to hear the props when submerged at 2/3 speed.

Suffice to say, I was having a hard time taking out, or getting through escort screens :)

Will changing the difficulty to hard make the escorts a little easier? Is the realistic setting really realistic or too hard in most people's opinions?

many thanks,

Accipter

[magic452]

Welcome to the boat mate. :salute:

The escort AI very much depends on what if any mods you are playing.
In the stock game they are pretty easy and the big mods make them more difficult.

Hard or easy escorts are more a function of experience than any thing else. The more experience you have the easier they get.

500 meters is pretty close to be having the periscope up for anything more than a quick look. They will see it most of the time if you leave it up very long. You want to clear the escorts by at least 900 or so meters.

If you're trying to get inside a convoy than go deep and silent till they get to you.

Even in heavy seas 2/3 is too fast that close, use 1 to 3 knots and make sure you have silent running turned on.

The realism and hard settings have more to do with your boat than the escorts AI. Go to custom settings and you will see what I mean.

Plot the convoy's course and set yourself up well ahead and sit and wait for them to come to you. You have a speed advantage on a convoy so use it and attack when you want from as good a position as you can get.
You should have course, speed and AoB pretty close even before they get to your position. All you will need the scope for is getting range and fine tuning AoB.
Good luck and good hunting

Magic

[accipiter0600]

That helps a lot. Thanks Magic.

I guess unless you are already set up with a nice solution ahead of time, moving into position in bad weather (visibility less than 1000 meters) is going to be very tough.

Accipiter

[magic452]

Bad weather is your friend. You have sonar that works on the surface, speed and you can see them before they see you. Use these tools and you can get into a very good position for an attack on your terms. The most important thing for a sub is to be in a good firing position. If you get that sinking the target is almost easy.

With low visibility you just may be better off staying on the surface. You can get pretty close that way, that's where the experience comes in.
Heavy seas also give you more options submerged for the get away, you're much harder to track.

Magic

[Daniel Prates]

What I particularly dislike in SH4's DD caracteristics is how they speed up to 30 knots in seconds (which is not so much a matter of game AI than it is of bad depiction of mechanical limitations of what such ship could do).

As I understand it, speeding up like you were driving a motorciclye was either impossible or could seriously damage the machinery. The game does not seem to consider that.

[magic452]

What I particularly dislike in SH4's DD caracteristics is how they speed up to 30 knots in seconds (which is not so much a matter of game AI than it is of bad depiction of mechanical limitations of what such ship could do).

As I understand it, speeding up like you were driving a motorciclye was either impossible or could seriously damage the machinery. The game does not seem to consider that.

That is one of the biggest flaws in the game and the primary reason I don't attack escorts unless I have a very good reason to do so. The pay off must out weigh the risk by a large margin before I'll attack any escort.

I'll just set up at a longer range and pick off one or two big targets and get the heck out of Dodge, do a run around and repeat.

If you're going to attack escorts there is one thing helps and that is to fire your first torpedo in front of her and freeze her in position. Shoot the rest at the bow back. May cost you an extra torpedo or two but you live to fight another day.

Magic

[andy_311]

Pay a vist in Truk they dont run arround in there very often at top speed it's so shallow (depending which way you come out)

[JapLance]

What I particularly dislike in SH4's DD caracteristics is how they speed up to 30 knots in seconds (which is not so much a matter of game AI than it is of bad depiction of mechanical limitations of what such ship could do).

As I understand it, speeding up like you were driving a motorciclye was either impossible or could seriously damage the machinery. The game does not seem to consider that.

Would reducing the engine power in the .sim file of the destroyers (keeping the maximum speed intact) fix this to some extent?

[magic452]

Several have tried to fix this problem and Webster came the closest but he was only able to fixed part of the problem and the very quick starts and stops remained a problem. The first 7 or so knots remained very fast I think.:know::06:
After that it worked pretty good.

His mod Webster's Ship Draft and Maneuvering fix will interfere with TMO to some degree.

Magic

[WernherVonTrapp]

Under normal conditions, it requires half an hour for a (IJN) DD to go from a cruising speed of 12 knots to a maximum speed of 30. Under combat conditions, this can be expected to take about 15 minutes. This does not include the 45 to 60 seconds required for the helmsman to execute any navigational/speed orders given by the captain (after it proceeds through the chain of command).

[Ducimus]

What I particularly dislike in SH4's DD caracteristics is how they speed up to 30 knots in seconds (which is not so much a matter of game AI than it is of bad depiction of mechanical limitations of what such ship could do).
.

That is fixable, but it is a lot of work.

[Dogfish40]

What I particularly dislike in SH4's DD caracteristics is how they speed up to 30 knots in seconds (which is not so much a matter of game AI than it is of bad depiction of mechanical limitations of what such ship could do).

As I understand it, speeding up like you were driving a motorciclye was either impossible or could seriously damage the machinery. The game does not seem to consider that.

That is one of the biggest flaws in the game and the primary reason I don't attack escorts unless I have a very good reason to do so. The pay off must out weigh the risk by a large margin before I'll attack any escort.

I'll just set up at a longer range and pick off one or two big targets and get the heck out of Dodge, do a run around and repeat.

If you're going to attack escorts there is one thing helps and that is to fire your first torpedo in front of her and freeze her in position. Shoot the rest at the bow back. May cost you an extra torpedo or two but you live to fight another day.

Magic

Correct me but aren't there several mods that (somewhat) try to address that issue? I've downloaded roughly two that seemed to describe adjusting the ships acceleration, especially JREX53's Ship acceleration physics mods for most of the major mega mods as well as 1.4 and 1.5.
These seem to help this problem. After loading "SAP" I was able to do some experimenting with the IJN DD's and the problem did seem much better. Maybe not perfect but I definitely saw a difference. If you've already checked this out well...say no more. If you haven't, maybe it will help.
Good hunting. :salute:

[Daniel Prates]

Under normal conditions, it requires half an hour for a (IJN) DD to go from a cruising speed of 12 knots to a maximum speed of 30. Under combat conditions, this can be expected to take about 15 minutes. This does not include the 45 to 60 seconds required for the helmsman to execute any navigational/speed orders given by the captain (after it proceeds through the chain of command).

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Curiosly, I remember that in "aces of the deep" (a 15-y old game by now) some things would happen that in my point of view would seem realistic. It happened to me several times, for instance, that a DD would speed up like hell to chase me on the surface and then suddenly slow down to ridiculous speeds - meaning probably that the DD just suffered a breakdown due to the captains harsh orders.

Where are this kind of unexpected things in SH4? That's worth modding.

[TorpX]

... meaning probably that the DD just suffered a breakdown due to the captains harsh orders.

Where are this kind of unexpected things in SH4? That's worth modding.

Do our subs ever suffer breakdowns? This would indeed be worthwhile.

[Daniel Prates]

Do our subs ever suffer breakdowns? This would indeed be worthwhile.

Yeah good point.

[Ducimus]

The only breakdowns you'll experience in any SH title are those incurred via damage applied by the AI. (shells, torpedo's, depth charges, etc).

Unfortunately random breakdowns do not happen in any SH title.

[TorpX]

Unfortunately random breakdowns do not happen in any SH title.

I figured as much.

There is/was work on a mod involving this for SH3. I don't know what the status of it is though.

[Diopos]

IIRC, SH2 had an "overheating" effect if you remained at flank speed for a while,... :hmmm:

.

[TorpX]

Thinking about it, it seems odd that they didn't model it. The HOR engined boats were notorious for breaking down and were really hadicapped. If you can model a torpedo dud, or circle runner, why not engine failure?

[Daniel Prates]

The same applies to CREW AI, which is also very square. Other than heving the boat stopped when you forget 'battlestations' on, I am still waiting to see what happens when morale drops. I mean, even with a green crew and being underwater for 24 hours under depth charge attacks, basically nothing will change. Some ballsy guys, those sailors.

[Armistead]

If you were in a storm with rain and fog I doubt they saw your scope. I don't recall stock, but in storms you usually can't see yourself within 500 yards.

When you've been found out it can be hard sometimes to determine the exact mistake that gave you away, but once you've played long enough you pretty much can. The enemy has many tools to find you, visuals, passive or active sonar, radar. You then have many factors that connect to these, weather, sea state, your speed and profile.

When I attack and plan to live it's simple reasoning, knowing the factors, who has the most on their side? One should do all they can to get as many factors in their favor before attacking, even if it means shadowing. One of the worse things you can do with TMO is attack a well escorted convoy in dead calm waters, usually they'll find you and then it's much harder to evade. Most don't realize, but they're numerous factors that come into play when you and the enemy go at it, probably could list at least 50.

Course we have no way of knowing the crew ratings of each enemy ship, but they play a large role, they can be from poor to elite. Think of enemy crew ratings as a multiplier to what they already have. If they have strong visuals with a competent rating, it gets much better with a veteran rating. Most enemy ships are set to competent, with TMO you'll have more veteran ratings. I don't recall any ships being set to elite in any mod, except the single bungo Pete.

We've debated crew morale in detail, it seems to have lil to no effect on gameplay. I've had morale from panicked to fanatic, nothing seems to change.

I agree the ships rocket stops and starts suck. Webster came close, but his mod seemed to screw up aspects of TMO and RSRD. As Ducimas said, it would be a lot of work and testing to get this to work with the supermods.

[Daniel Prates]

We've debated crew morale in detail, it seems to have lil to no effect on gameplay. I've had morale from panicked to fanatic, nothing seems to change.

That's what i'm talking about.

I'm no modder myself, so maybe it's easy for me to just throw it out there, but... this does not seem to be a hard thing to mod. Reaction time is the key here, a simple mod that slows reaction to your orders according to crew morale would already be a very positive change.