Maximum draw distance

[sik1977]

Hi all,

I was wondering whats the maximum draw distance beyond which ships are not drawn. I use a 20KM mod with GWX, so obviously 20km is the minimum draw distance that I know of, but how much more, if any is the max draw distance.

Thanks.

[GoldenRivet]

I think i understand your question - I'll do my best here:

the stock Silent Hunter 3 visibility radius is 8 km, there are mods including the GWX supermod which increases the range of visibility

In theory i suppose, if you upped your visibility to 100km and your crew were keen enough they could spot the ships at such a range

The world where SH3 is concerned, is flat

The real world as we know is quite round

so, with that in mind, in reality, with no atmospheric interferences such as haze or fog etc, on an absolutely perfect day an observer standing on a u-boat conning tower would only be able to see about +/- 10 miles anyhow because the ship would be quite literally hidden behind the earth's curvature beyond that distance.

with that in mind, increasing the visibility in SH3 only serves to detract from realism, but as the SH3 world is flat, it is possible i suppose to mod the game in such a way that your crew could see 500 miles in any direction if one were so inclined however... with the 16km mod, i find that ships in the distance are always so far away that my crew sees them right about the same time they are barely visible through the binoculars so to increase the distance beyond 16km not only detracts from the realism but your crew would probably be spotting ships visually that you as a player would be incapable of seeing visually on your own

If you are talking about spawn radius... thats a whole other issue. Ships have spawn points as do convoys and it goes by date and time. The campaign script has random and scripted ships and convoys which are set to appear at specific dates at specific hours and minutes at a specific spot in the SH3 world... if you are within 50km of their spawn point, when their date and time stamp gets called upon they simply will not spawn. This prevents the player from plodding along through the north Atlantic and suddenly having ships come out of thin air all around him which would be quite annoying if there were a number of warships involved. :dead:

However, if you are further than 50km from the spawn point when the specific ship's date and time roll around, the game engine will spawn it and then keep track of the ships position as it follows its waypoints until such time it is within your visual range. so when you get "ship spotted" it has been "spawned" for a long time even though to you it didn't exist visually... its only just now come within visual range for your crew to see it visually.

given this information it is reasonable to assume that the ship is "Drawn" only when in visual range, despite having been spawned for quite some time in game. for this reason i am convinced that if you could modify your game files so that the atmosphere were 500 miles and the crew could "see" the same distance, there is no reason your crew couldn't "see" every ship within that distance despite the fact that you probably wouldn't be able to on your monitor and would neet to close the gap to not only formulate an attack, but bring the submarine within torpedo range of the target!

from the GWX manual - as atmospheric visibility range is increased, CPU loading is also increased. while it may be possible with a strong enough CPU it likely would crash the game as atmospheric distance is increased to some unreasonable number.

so my advice would be to stick with the more realistic 16km atmosphere or bump it up to say 100km and see what happens.

worst case scenario your game crashes

middle of the road scenario, your crew spots the ship, and it is visible on the map but you cant see it because it is a speck

best case scenario, your crew and you can see the ship at whatever range you input (doubtful)

[BigWalleye]

ManosEnvironmentPro sets the visual horizon at 20 km. That's 10.8 nm or 12 statute miles. This is closest to the RL figure that Golden Rivet mentions. Other environment mods may do the same. The maximum visual range only applies, as in RL, when the weather is perfectly clear.

BTW, MEP v5.0 has an optional mod the simulate Earth curvature. Near max visual range, only the superstructure of the target ship is rendered. The hull remains "below the horizon." Nice touch!

[Zosimus]

Sometimes when I am on course to intercept a convoy and get within a certain distance from the convoy my computer freezes for a moment and then resumes normal TC speed. I believe that the convoy exists as a spawned entity, but somehow is not rendered by the game (in some way) until I get close enough for the computer to figure that it needs to flesh out the convoy somehow.

What exactly is the computer doing during this multi-second pause and how close do I have to be before it starts doing it? 50 km?

[Sailor Steve]

so, with that in mind, in reality, with no atmospheric interferences such as haze or fog etc, on an absolutely perfect day an observer standing on a u-boat conning tower would only be able to see about +/- 10 miles anyhow because the ship would be quite literally hidden behind the earth's curvature beyond that distance.

That is why American sub skippers had lookout stations built around the periscope shears.

The question then becomes "Okay, you can see ten miles. Is that the horizon, meaning the waterline of the target ship? Is it the top of the superstructure? The top of the masts? Or the top of the smoke coming from its funnels?

I'm perfectly comfortable with the 20km granted by 'SH5 Water for SH3'.

[GoldenRivet]

Sometimes when I am on course to intercept a convoy and get within a certain distance from the convoy my computer freezes for a moment and then resumes normal TC speed. I believe that the convoy exists as a spawned entity, but somehow is not rendered by the game (in some way) until I get close enough for the computer to figure that it needs to flesh out the convoy somehow.

What exactly is the computer doing during this multi-second pause and how close do I have to be before it starts doing it? 50 km?

I would say 50 km is accurate given that there are so many "50KM rules"

so yeah thats a good point... 50KM is a good guess

[BigWalleye]

The question then becomes "Okay, you can see ten miles. Is that the horizon, meaning the waterline of the target ship? Is it the top of the superstructure? The top of the masts? Or the top of the smoke coming from its funnels?

A simple and fairly accurate approximation (good to within 6%) is distance to the horizon in nautical miles is equal to the square root of the observer's height in feet. So for 16 feet (5 meters, an good number for the eye level of the lookouts on a VII), the distance to the horizon is 4 nm. For the distance to see something over the horizon, the distance is the sum of the square root of the observer's height and the square root of the object's height. A typical merchant ship has its highest point about 25 m above the waterline, or about 81 feet. That's 9+4=13, so the lookout could see the top of the ship's mast at 13 nm. Putting that back into metric units, 13 nm is 24 km. That's to see the extreme tip of the highest mast. At 20 km, the lookout could see a point 15 m above the waterline, say the top of the ship's superstructure. So the 20 km horizon seems like a good practical limit. It certainly is not the distance at which a lookout could see smoke, though.

[TorpX]

It certainly is not the distance at which a lookout could see smoke, though.

A good point. And it isn't just a matter of ships' smoke; beyond a certain distance mountains and land masses will just disappear.

[Pisces]

Hydrophone sounds and game stuttering start appearing when a unit get's into a 34km radius circle. So I guess visuals isn't beyond that.

[sik1977]

Thank you all for replying, but unfortunately the discussion somehow turned into a maximum visual range at sea... which was not what I wanted to know (I am so disappointed in myself for not being able to explain my query)...

So basically I wanted to know in 'game engine' terms, whats the maximum distance/radius from my submarine at sea that ships get physically drawn by the game engine so that a theoretically unlimited visual/hydrophone range can pick it up (and display as an actual ship through external cameras and not just as a radio contact) ...

What basically I want to determine is, that once I have damaged a ship in a convoy, and dove (dived) to evade its escorts, and later got back to shadowing the convoy at a safe distance and attempt another run at it after over taking it (at a safe distance) to sink the damaged ship (which didn't sink despite taking damage) - HOW FAR can I get from the convoy/ship before it stops getting drawn and only remains on the map as a contact?

The reason its important to not let the ship out of physical draw range is because the game engine somehow manages to forget the damage the ship took and resets the damage (as if the ship repaired itself) and I would have to start from scratch. I have seen this with all sorts of ships as well as warships left stationary after multiple torpedo hits and almost sinking (but managing to stay afloat while listing heavily), but later as soon as you move out of draw range (not visual range, which can vary due to fog/light conditions), they start moving at regular speed.

The answer below regarding 34km may be what i am looking for, so if anyone could confirm this? because 34km seems more than what i have experienced mostly before ships stop getting drawn (and only remain on the map as contacts).

Thanks.

Hydrophone sounds and game stuttering start appearing when a unit get's into a 34km radius circle. So I guess visuals isn't beyond that.