View Full Version : Convoy spacing in new missions
I've noted a tendency, even when the ships are well over 300m apart, for convoys to freak and scatter at the beginning of a mission. How far apart is "normal"? How far apart do they need to be to not panic in fear of collision which is what I assume they are doing...
I've noted a tendency, even when the ships are well over 300m apart, for convoys to freak and scatter at the beginning of a mission. How far apart is "normal"? How far apart do they need to be to not panic in fear of collision which is what I assume they are doing...
Good question.
I, more or less, assumed that they were supposed to 'freak and scatter', when it hit the fan. Especially, the merchants. I figured this was more to evade torpedoes than to avoid collision. The spacing of the ships in convoys, in the game, is much less than what it was in RL. That's all I really know. The way I play, I mostly encounter singles and small convoys.
Enemy AI behavior leaves a lot to be desired. It was better in SHCE.
Admiral Halsey
04-03-14, 01:49 AM
Enemy AI behavior leaves a lot to be desired. You could say that with most games really.
So what was it in real life? This is for mission MAKING so I have control over it...
This is from another post I readed here long ago (Sorry not being able to quote the author), and for allied convoys, but gives you a reference:
Convoys during the war sailed in formations that were much wider than they were long eg a 45 ship convoy would be in nine columns of five, even a 14 vessel convoy would travel in seven columns of two. There were several reasons for this formation:
1. U-boats would much prefer to attack a target side on and this presented fewer opportunities than a long snaking column stretching for several miles.
2. Escorts could travel from front to back of the convoy (and back again) much more quickly.
3. Escorts on the flanks could keep both the front and back of the formation in sight without having to change station. This also helped with signalling.
4. Stragglers slipping behind with engine problems would be spotted much sooner by escorts in the rear.
5. In a large convoy, ships in the middle columns would be out of range from torpedo attacks fired from outside the escort screen.
Station keeping distances for vessels was 3 cables (600 yards) between ships in columns and 5 cables (half a mile) between columns. In practice of course, merchant ships were rarely able to stay this close in anything like rough weather and escorts would inevitably be chasing back and forth signalling frantically to herd up stragglers as darkness approached. The downside of a large spread out convoy was that the best attacking position for a u-boat was to actually surface at night within the central columns where merchant lookouts were much less vigilant and they would be all but invisible to escorts.
So in meters, that's
658 meters front to back
1097 meters side to side
Thanks! That's exactly what I wanted to know! Now we'll see how that works in game... :hmmm:
Ok, ran a test. I "auto arranged" the convoy into 3 columns of 2 ships each with a spacing of 1km and they seem to be quite happy. They steamed toward their waypoint without becoming a floating bunch of billard balls. :up:
You can find in Lurker's RSRD campaign very accurate convoys, and in the readme and in the starting post he lists a huge amount of sources. If I remember correctly, there was a link to a web that had lots of detailed info about japanese convoys: frequency, typichal composition, formations, etc
The largest failing is the lack of an organic "zig-zag" capability in any of the game engines. Not the "constant helming" we see, but legit patterns of course changes for the entire group every XX minutes. The patterns were not /\/\/\/\/, either, but very complex shapes that look more like bizarre sinusoids.
We tried in both my campaign, and lurker's RSRDC to have /\/\/\ zigzags created by the Automated Campaign Editor program, but too many slows the game down a great deal (a single convoy can then have 10s of thousands of waypoints).
Webster
04-04-14, 05:42 PM
Ok, ran a test. I "auto arranged" the convoy into 3 columns of 2 ships each with a spacing of 1km and they seem to be quite happy. They steamed toward their waypoint without becoming a floating bunch of billard balls. :up:
that's good news :up:
if you take a group of ships, out of 15 or 20 in a convoy there will most of the time be 3 or 4 that turn away while the others are quite happy and content holding the formation at "reasonable" distance. i think for most people, what "looks" like safe spacing distance can be too close by game standards as well as RL distances.
I think some ships also have the collision distances set too far out so they spook too easy fearing collision. so one may turn away at 600m while the next might not turn away until 500m. that one of the biggest peeves i have with the game is most similar ships don't share basic uniform behaviors and tendencies as they should.
The largest failing is the lack of an organic "zig-zag" capability in any of the game engines.
...........
I agree. This would be a very big step up, in the realism dept.
if you take a group of ships, out of 15 or 20 in a convoy there will most of the time be 3 or 4 that turn away while the others are quite happy and content holding the formation at "reasonable" distance. i think for most people, what "looks" like safe spacing distance can be too close by game standards as well as RL distances.
One often overlooked thing is that ships on the external columns should have the capability of running much faster than the set convoy speed. Otherwise they will never be able to keep station on the big circle they have to make around the convoy's pivot point when it changes direction.
SH4 does not recognize the difference between zig-zagging as a simple heading change pivoting on the same point, and a true course change of the whole convoy. It always asumes the latter, hence setting zig zagging patterns in the capmpaign files is not effective and tends to break up convoys.
...It always asumes the latter, hence setting zig zagging patterns in the capmpaign files is not effective and tends to break up convoys.
Hi Hitman,
what do you mean with this :06: I extensively use zigzagging convoys in my SH3 installation and it's quite effective (around every 16km and an angle variation of +/-25°). I've also never seen a broken convoy :hmmm:
Cheers, LGN1
Hi Hitman,
what do you mean with this :06: I extensively use zigzagging convoys in my SH3 installation and it's quite effective (around every 16km and an angle variation of +/-25°). I've also never seen a broken convoy :hmmm:
Cheers, LGN1
Any vessel on the outside of a formation, that makes a pivot must move faster or fall behind. The same problem existed with heavy bomber formations when they turned.
One zig every 16 km isn't really a tactical zig pattern. At 8 kts., that's only about once per hour. One zig in 6 min. was more the norm in RL.
***
Perhaps, limiting the number of columns to 2 or 3 would help?
Personally, I would be content to have fewer large convoys in exchange for more zigging. However, Ducimus said that frequent zigs taxed the computer and slowed things down. How much of a problem was this?
Hi,
I understand this, but I have never seen any problem with this :hmmm: Maybe because I limit the convoy speed and the max. column size and thus, the outer ships can always easily catch up :06:
I agree that it's not like a historical zigzag pattern, however, it makes the game significantly harder at least for me. Attacking/Shadowing a late-war convoy in the Atlantic without map updates and many escorts with radar is now really tough.
Cheers, LGN1
I have no issue with you guys debating how SHIII works, but I thought it worth pointing out that this was an SHIV thread. Perhaps SHIV behaves differently then SHIII in this regard?
In any case, 1km keeps the skippers from having a panic attack so that's the golden distance for me when building missions in SHIV.
Hi,
I understand this, but I have never seen any problem with this :hmmm: Maybe because I limit the convoy speed and the max. column size and thus, the outer ships can always easily catch up :06:
Yes, that sounds like a good idea.
I agree about having some zigs making things harder. Anything that makes the targets a little more unpredictable is to the good. It's just a pity that the game does not permit more of it.
what do you mean with this :06: I extensively use zigzagging convoys in my SH3 installation and it's quite effective (around every 16km and an angle variation of +/-25°). I've also never seen a broken convoy :hmmm:
There are two types of zig zag that the convoys did in real life:
1) Helm change, where the formation would keep the general course, but for some minutes changed helm to a different heading (returning to the original main course inmediately after that). There were alarm clocks at the helmsman station that ringed f.e. every 5 minutes to remind the helmsman to change course again. This was done to avoid incoming torpedoes and difficult the uboat ascertaining the real true course.
2) Complete course change, where the whole convoy would steer a different course altogether. While doing the 5 minutes helm changes around it, of course. This was done to shake pursuers and confuse about the real course steered in the long run.
In the first case, because alls hips changed heading simultaneously, the aspect of the formation (viewed from above) changed accordingly, for example a perfect square would become a rhombus or diamond when they all change helm 45º
In the second case, the whole formation changes course and the ships on the outside must speed up to catch the relative position they had to the rest before. This happened every as many hours as the convoy commander decided and usually always at least once after dark so as to lose any pursuing uboats easier.
SH3/4 can only do the second thing.
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