View Full Version : RUb 1.43 and Flak gun effective range
Effective range of Flak guns in RUb 1.43 is extremally decreased - from 1500 (long range), 1000 (middle range) and 500 (short range)m in stock SH3 to 300 m (all ranges) in RUb.
I've found that max range for 2 cm L/65 C/30 and C/38 was 4900 m, 3,7 cm L/83 SK C/30 was 8500 m, L/69 M42 was 6400 m and L/57 M43 was 6500 m (all at 45 degrees).
For details look at http://www.navweaps.com/
Don't you think that RUb Flak gun effective range should be correct?
Hartmann
09-04-05, 04:54 PM
i think that are low values. :roll:
300 m ..a good rifle can reach this distance easily.
But are for disuade the players that fight in surface against the planes :dead: . with this low values the better is do a crash dive.
I think you should differentiate between max range and max effective range. Sure the gun could shoot that far, but I'd say even at 300m, there's a good chance it'd bounce off well-armored key parts of the aircraft...
Hi!
The Oerlikon 20mm cannon (used on naval vessels) had an effective range of about 1000 yards. This weapon is in the same class (barrel length, muzzle velocity, and fire control) as the 20mm AA used on U-boats, so 1000 yards looks right for those systems. AA using 37mm cannons would have a somewhat greater effective range.
As a reference, check out the After Action Report of USS Enterprise for the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands (October 1942) here (http://www.cv6.org/ship/logs/action19421026.htm), where the commander asks for an increase in the 1000 yard effective range of 20mm cannon to better help deal with dive bomber attacks.
Pablo
CCIP - I know that max range isn't equal to max effective range, but in RUb max effective range should be increased in my opinion.
Why all ranges (long, middle and short) are the same (300 m)? Where is the reason?
What do you think about long range at 1000 m, middle at 500 m and short at 250 m?
The other problem RUb compensates for, as I think Beery noted, is the accuracy. The Flak gunners are super-accurate in SHIII; they'll hit the plane perfectly at 2km away when no human would really be able to.
So, RUb's consideration is both for effective range and accuracy.
I just man the guns myself if I want to shoot them from far away. At least the accuracy is human :)
The general result is quite alright though. Fights against aircraft seem to be pretty realistic in terms of duration, and there's been a few times when concentrated fire from late-war heavily armed U-boats brought down even Catalinas on the first pass (lucky shots I guess).
But anyway.... it's very easy to change this in CrewAI.cfg for those who don't like it.
OK, it's easy to change CrewAI.cfg, but which value can I use? Is it possible to change this only by 100 m (from 300 to 200 for instance) or by 50 m (from 300 to 250) too? I don't know if RUB/SH3 accept it and it will work.
I think Airpower 1.4c has these values: 1200, 800 and 400 m,
AAGuns Selection Range in Airpower is 1500 m, in RUb is 600 m.
As I wrote earlier RUb has too decreased values, especially as you compare them to real 3,7 cm gun max range (6400-8500 m) - 300 m for this gun isn't realistic effective range.
Hi!
The Oerlikon 20mm cannon (used on naval vessels) had an effective range of about 1000 yards. This weapon is in the same class (barrel length, muzzle velocity, and fire control) as the 20mm AA used on U-boats, so 1000 yards looks right for those systems. AA using 37mm cannons would have a somewhat greater effective range.
As a reference, check out the After Action Report of USS Enterprise for the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands (October 1942) here (http://www.cv6.org/ship/logs/action19421026.htm), where the commander asks for an increase in the 1000 yard effective range of 20mm cannon to better help deal with dive bomber attacks.
Pablo
Ummm Pablo, I doubt the u-boats were a very effective AA platform and in no way comparable to a large warship like a CV or a BB with dozens of light AA. They were not stable, had no fire control (for the 37mm) and as I said lacked the numbers. I managed to down a Swordfish with the nerfed RuB AA guns but would not try to take on a Catalina.
Hi!
The Oerlikon 20mm cannon (used on naval vessels) had an effective range of about 1000 yards. This weapon is in the same class (barrel length, muzzle velocity, and fire control) as the 20mm AA used on U-boats, so 1000 yards looks right for those systems. AA using 37mm cannons would have a somewhat greater effective range.
As a reference, check out the After Action Report of USS Enterprise for the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands (October 1942) here (http://www.cv6.org/ship/logs/action19421026.htm), where the commander asks for an increase in the 1000 yard effective range of 20mm cannon to better help deal with dive bomber attacks.
Pablo
Ummm Pablo, I doubt the u-boats were a very effective AA platform and in no way comparable to a large warship like a CV or a BB with dozens of light AA. They were not stable, had no fire control (for the 37mm) and as I said lacked the numbers. I managed to down a Swordfish with the nerfed RuB AA guns but would not try to take on a Catalina.
Hi!
I believe you are correct that U-boats were not an effective AA platform compared to surface ships, and that this was due in part to the limited number of AA weapons available; however, I am making a distinction between "effective range" and "overall effectiveness."
While a ship is generally a more stable gun platform, it's not clear to me that is true while ships are avoiding air attack - given that SH3 U-boat guns can't be operated in rough seas. As it happens, the Enterprise gunnery officer noted in his report on the Battle of the Eastern Solomons (August, 1942) (here) (http://www.cv6.org/ship/logs/gunnery19420824.htm) noted:
- the 20mm gunners were using local control and tracer ammunition (just as SH3 U-boats do)
- target deflection was next to nothing (the attackers were coming straight at them) which resulted in very accurate fire. This is generally the case in SH3, where the aircraft come straight at you.
- the ship was shaken violently by hits and near-misses.
The Enterprise commander also notes (here) (http://www.cv6.org/ship/logs/action19420824.htm[/url) the ship was the ship was making radical maneuvers (speed >27 knots, with maximum rudder) to throw off the aim of the enemy dive bombers while the 20mm guns were firing. It is under the above conditions that the effective range of 20mm Oerlikons was judged to be about 1,000 yards; I should point out that radical maneuvers at maximum speed are a good way to throw off the aim of enemy aircraft in SH3 as well.
The difference is, as you pointed out, that a capital ship has lots of 20mm (and other caliber weapons) going, as well as supporting fire from other ships in the fleet, while the U-boat has just a few 20mm and maybe a 37mm gun. I think Jace's Airpower mod (included in RUb) makes aircarft more suitably resistant to the effects of 20mm cannon fire so that I personally use default settings for the Academy, but when I'm playing a campaign I try to dive rather than fight it out on the surface. If I'm damaged, it's back to the surface for a fight to the finish.
Pablo
True Pablo, I guess the problem in the game is, the stock airplanes are too fragile and thus easy to shoot down, and the AI gunners are too accurate. Jace solved the first problem as you said (I think this is incorporated in RuB as well) and we need to find a way to nerf the gunnner's accuracy. Your info has convinced me that the AA range in the mod is too short.
Isn't the AA accuracy setting in Crewai.cfg or sim.cfg?
Hi!
The range limits are in CrewAI.cfg
The accuracy for AI anti-aircraft (I think this is for all AA guns, whether on U-boats, ships, or shore) is in sim.cfg
Pablo
I tested setting the accuracy from 8 to 50 in sim.cfg last night but I don't think it made a difference - in the flak training mission the gunner still shot up the planes and seemed quite accurate.
Hm - unless one should go down in numbers to get less accurate? I'll have to see.
In RUb the AI are limited to 300 metres because that was the effective range for a human shooting at a plane from a U-boat in WW2 (guns themselves have an effective range based on bullet trajectory, but the 'human' effective range is far less, as it's based on eyesight and the ability to effectively lead a target). Apart from the realism aspects, this feature exists as a much needed restriction on the AI's superhuman accuracy, and it actually allows the player to get involved in AA shooting, which was pointless before, since the AI could hit a gnat's whisker at 1200 yards.
This feature will not be changed because it works extremely well. If anything, more restrictions need to be added because the FlAK guns are still far more effective than they were in reality. We've tried adjusting the AI accuracy. For the U-boat AI, only the initial accuracy can be adjusted. Within a split second another routine kicks in that pulls the aim in towards the target. There is no known way to make the AI less accurate overall.
I'd suggest however making a slight difference between short, medium and long range - because otherwise the buttons have no meaning and might as well be deleted.
Like short range=250m, medium range = 300, long = 350 or something like that. Or like I said, delete them in menu_102e_768.ini.
oRGy has good suggest - the same value for long, medium and short range isn't realistic, crewmen could start fire at different distances, not only from 300 m, their accuracy is another story. I think higher values will be more realistic, for instance from Airpower 1.4 (1200, 800 and 400 m).
Beery, from where do you know that 300 m is the effective range for a human shooting? I shot many times from 7,62 mm Kalashnikov at 300 m distance to small targets, smaller than plane, with good results. I think 300 m is too small value for 2 cm Flak gun, particularly for 3,7 cm Flak gun.
rulle34
09-09-05, 11:57 AM
In RUb the AI are limited to 300 metres because that was the effective range for a human shooting at a plane from a U-boat in WW2
What does this figures coming from? The plane has taking action at you already from longer distance.
The thing is that if AA gunfire is effective the plane will do evasive manouvers. That doesn't necessary mean that you actually have to hit the plane. This feature is NOT simulated in SH3. So the question is how to balance out this?
Tactics was to come out from the sun in a fast powerdive and drop your, bomb, -s or depthcharges combined with gunfire to make the crew go for shelter. (Avoid the crew to man and use AA guns and of course if diving was not possible)
If the airplane don't have the surprising advantage and AA gun (or guns) is spreading lead at you, you don't just dive in to that. That happens only in movies.
oRGy has good suggest - the same value for long, medium and short range isn't realistic, crewmen could start fire at different distances, not only from 300 m, their accuracy is another story. I think higher values will be more realistic, for instance from Airpower 1.4 (1200, 800 and 400 m).
I'm just not sure what difference it would make. A plane moves 600 metres in about 4 seconds. If I included long, medium and short ranges at such close ranges everyone would still open up at the maximum range. The longer ranges were there so you could choose whether to conserve ammo or not. At 300m range conserving ammo isn't really an issue - you're only going to conserve a few bullets if you open up at 250m rather than 300m.
Beery, from where do you know that 300 m is the effective range for a human shooting? I shot many times from 7,62 mm Kalashnikov at 300 m distance to small targets, smaller than plane, with good results. I think 300 m is too small value for 2 cm Flak gun, particularly for 3,7 cm Flak gun.
The problem with shooting a ground-mounted gun (even a submachine gun) and comparing it to a U-boat-mounted gun is that the ground mounted gun is significantly more stable. Even small waves can cause a significant loss of effective accuracy at sea. I got the info from one of my books on the U-boat war - it's some quote from a U-boat officer as I recall. I'll try to track it down again. The main point of this mod, however, is to tone down the FlAK gun's ability to shoot down aircraft. Even with the nerf the FlAK guns are very much more effective than their real counterparts. But the quote does exist. If it didn't, I would have probably done something similar anyway just as a much-needed nerf.
In RUb the AI are limited to 300 metres because that was the effective range for a human shooting at a plane from a U-boat in WW2
What does this figures coming from? The plane has taking action at you already from longer distance.
The thing is that if AA gunfire is effective the plane will do evasive manouvers. That doesn't necessary mean that you actually have to hit the plane. This feature is NOT simulated in SH3. So the question is how to balance out this?
Tactics was to come out from the sun in a fast powerdive and drop your, bomb, -s or depthcharges combined with gunfire to make the crew go for shelter. (Avoid the crew to man and use AA guns and of course if diving was not possible)
If the airplane don't have the surprising advantage and AA gun (or guns) is spreading lead at you, you don't just dive in to that. That happens only in movies.
Aircraft did indeed dive into anti aircraft gunfire all the time. They did it because anti-aircraft fire was virtually useless, especially at ranges over 300m. This is the main reason why why FlAK boats were so unsuccessful. Most planes could successfully engage a U-boat while staying outside the effective range of the U-boat's FlAK guns. The U-boat is a much bigger and more stationary target than an aircraft, and an aircraft firing on a U-boat has visual clues (the splashes from gunfire in the water) as to the effectiveness of the fire. The U-boat gunners have no such clear visual clues. If an aircraft was forced to enter the effective range of the U-boat's guns, it was probably moving so fast and at the same time sheering away from the boat, so that the U-boat could only really 'spray and pray'. U-boat FlAK gunnery can be compared to air-to-air gunnery in this sense - 300m is considered long range for an unfixed machinegun mount, whether it's on an aircraft or on a U-boat.
In order to get a realistic result, we have to balance out poor AI by making it harder to shoot down the poor AI aircraft. The idea is to get a similar possibility of shooting down an AI aircraft in the game as it was to shoot down a real aircraft from a U-boat. If I come back from a patrol with even 5 planes shot down, that would be a highly unrealistic result. As far as I know, no U-boat ever shot down more than one plane in a patrol, but with the standard game it's possible to bag 50 or more. In order for the simulation to work, it has to prevent such wild scores. Since we can't adjust the AI's accuracy, adjustments have to be made to other areas.
rulle34
09-09-05, 01:40 PM
Aircraft did indeed dive into anti aircraft gunfire all the time. They did it because anti-aircraft fire was virtually useless, especially at ranges over 300m.
Are you sure about this Beery???
You can't tell from an airplane what kind of AA gun the sub has and if anything was like the 20mm gun it was no game to dive in to that fire-rain!
The thing is that you have to perform a surpriseattack. Firing at the aircraft in the last time in the diving attack, I fully agree to you that it's extremely hard to hit a airplane, but if that plane was spotted and fired upon Im not so sure that the plane will dive in to that sub, hoping they are useless to shoot! But we have to separate the situation when the plane has the initative and performing the attack and then are firing at, in this situation I fully agree that the pilot can calculate with small risk of being hit by gunfire. I hope you understand me here Beery!
An example when AA guns was effective without hitting the plane, it keept the plane in circuit around the sub, waiting for back up. With two planes attacking from separate direction, the sub was chanceless. This situation was a matter of who has the time. The sub knows that it can't dive, because then the plane will attack when its half-way under surface. If it stays surfaced to long the reinforcements will arriwe. This is an example of keeping out the plane from an attack when the sub is advantage of spotting and open fire! (This was just an example!)
In order to get a realistic result, we have to balance out poor AI by making it harder to shoot down the poor AI aircraft. The idea is to get a similar possibility of shooting down an AI aircraft in the game as it was to shoot down a real aircraft from a U-boat. If I come back from a patrol with even 5 planes shot down, that would be a highly unrealistic result. As far as I know, no U-boat ever shot down more than one plane in a patrol, but with the standard game it's possible to bag 50 or more. In order for the simulation to work, it has to prevent such wild scores. Since we can't adjust the AI's accuracy, adjustments have to be made to other areas.
This I fully agree with you Beery!
And my intention is not to start some "neverending-overproving-who-has-right" here, but I just want the discussion to be held in a reasonable and realistic way, and you do have a great impact on readers in this forum.
I think the mod is ok considering the possibilitys in game :up:
Aircraft did indeed dive into anti aircraft gunfire all the time. They did it because anti-aircraft fire was virtually useless, especially at ranges over 300m.
Are you sure about this Beery???
You can't tell from an airplane what kind of AA gun the sub has and if anything was like the 20mm gun it was no game to dive in to that fire-rain!
The caliber of the gun should make no difference. The major factor is that these are swivel mounted guns. It's like a 'to hit' modifier in a wargame - if you can't get a hit, the gun's caliber won't matter. Swivel-mounted guns are really difficult to aim and fire effectively at a fast-moving target even on a steady mount. On a U-boat they become even more ineffective. The chances of hitting an attacking aircraft would be very low unless the attacking aircraft was very poorly-flown indeed. Any attacking plane would have used various tricks (such as sideslipping) to confuse a FlAK gunner's aim. Without any visual clues to enable the gunner to 'walk' the shots onto the target, and with the speed of an attacking aircraft making the effective firing time very short, the chances of a hit were very low indeed. The tracer rounds from a quad 20mm may have looked terrifying to a pilot, but the chances of being shot down or killed by such a weapon would be quite low - a U-boat FlAK gun crew would probably have less chance of a kill than a B-17 tail gunner had because of the differences in the relative speed of the attacker versus the defender.
These are the reasons for the extremely low success rate of U-boat FlAK gun crews. A quick look at the numbers on http://www.uboat.net/history/aircraft_losses.htm will illustrate the fact that U-boats were horrible gun platforms. U-boats got on average 1 aircraft shot down per 10 U-boats in service. I've only found one U-boat that was credited with two planes in a single patrol (U-256 - twice!). In the first patrol, she shot down one plane, and the second crashed due to being caught in the blast from its own bombs. The second patrol had a similar outcome: one plane shot down, but the other crashed due to apparent pilot error while setting up his attack.
andy_311
09-09-05, 08:22 PM
I disagree I belive in (if your caught by suprise or can't dive for whatever reason) put as much lead in the air as possible some shots may hit the plane others might not, even the Americans did this juring the Kamakazi attacks on the fleet ,now am not comparing a u-boat to a surface ship but in this game in the closeing stages of the war (harbour traffic installed) there should be enough lead in the air to knock down a majority of attacking planes,but going back to the game if I can't dive for whatever reason I will take on any aircraft which I have in the past, .
Also hasn't this game been modded so that aircraft are harder to shoot down?
Me personally think this game will never be 100% relistic it just gets harder
...in this game in the closeing stages of the war (harbour traffic installed) there should be enough lead in the air to knock down a majority of attacking planes...
No U-boat ever shot down more than one aircraft in a single patrol. If they could have shot down more I'm sure they would have.
Also hasn't this game been modded so that aircraft are harder to shoot down?
Aircraft are harder to shoot down, but depth charges are easier to avoid. Overall, RUb should be easier than the standard game. More realistic doesn't usually mean harder. Jurgen Oesten, a WW2 U-boat commander and sub sim player, once wrote about sub sims: “It’s very difficult to win, they beat me almost all the time. In real life it was much easier.”
rulle34
09-11-05, 05:08 AM
I agree in general with you Beery but you don't start diving into a rain of lead from the beginning. The thing was that in most cases the sub was caught in a situation where discovering the plane and manning the AA guns was often to late. The plane had already started the attackdive. One other thing was that plane often attacked the sub from a low level. That made it even harder to hit. The siluhett of an approaching plane is not big at all.
Fromthat link you provided you can read: "This strategic victory was not without loss as can be seen in the table here below; more than 120 aircraft and hundreds of men were lost in the fierce battles between the U-boats and their pursuing aircraft"
http://www.uboat.net/history/aircraft_losses.htm
On the same site you can link to another page (http://www.uboat.net/history/fight_back_order.htm ) where it says: "The RAF did not always attack a surfaced U-boat if there was another way, if there were surface escorts near by they were called in"
and "..and U-191's machine gun defence that drove of a Liberator in April."
"He wanted to kill U-boats and if the U-boats stayed on the surface to fight it out it was fine with him. He was willing to loose an aircraft if that attack also sank the U-boat. He reasoned he had more aircraft than Dönitz had U-boats. He could hardly loose this war of attrition."
"U-758 under attack by 8 Avengers from USS Bogue on 8 June, 1943
The boat's new quadruple 20 mm AA armament managed to drive off the attackers."
"This order stayed in effect for 97 days and during that time no less than 26 boats (over 20 in the Bay of Biscay) were lost and 17 damaged.
In return the U-boats shot down at least 28 aircraft (with many more severely damaged). This is important since many works on the subject give the impression that the RAF victory over the bay in 1943 had been almost free."
As you can see from this is that it was far from harmless to attack a defending submarine. The thing is also that numbers only include aircraft shot down. It doesn't says how many was damaged by sub AA fire.
My opininon is that sinking a sub was a suitable target for a attackning plane, but you have to be in advance for a succesfull attack. Then the sub has very little time and almost no chance to make damage to the plane in that situation.
But you can't say that it doesn't matter what AA guns the sub have. And if the sub was in advance (couldn't dive for some reason) spotted the plane early, and started to fire on the plane, the pilot just thought that "you can't hit me so I continue my attack". This is not realistic thinking and I think that my examples abvove shows that it was far from harmless to attack a sub who had the possibility to shoot back in time! But chances was very good if you had the advance in the attack!
Like I said before, I don't want to make a thing out of this, I think people can judge themselfs reading this! :sunny:
I agree in general with you Beery but you don't start diving into a rain of lead from the beginning. The thing was that in most cases the sub was caught in a situation where discovering the plane and manning the AA guns was often to late. The plane had already started the attackdive.
Well in the game, with high TC levels in place, in many cases you're attacked by aircraft before you even know they're there. So this is already modelled by the sim.
...As you can see from this is that it was far from harmless to attack a defending submarine. The thing is also that numbers only include aircraft shot down. It doesn't says how many was damaged by sub AA fire.
I never said FlAK gun fire was harmless. In RUb you can shoot down aircraft. It's not like RUb prevents players from doing that altogether. My point is that SH3 (even with RUb's limitations) allows players to shoot down far more aircraft than was possible in WW2.
[quote]But you can't say that it doesn't matter what AA guns the sub have.
I think you're misunderstanding me. I never said that. I said that if your bullets were going wide anyway, the caliber of your guns didn't matter. If you miss with a 16" shell it has the same effect as if you miss with a 9mm round.
...I think that my examples abvove shows that it was far from harmless to attack a sub who had the possibility to shoot back in time!
I don't think it was harmless. My point is that it was harmless above a certain range, and 'relatively' harmless even within effective range. You seem to be suggesting that I think that FlAK guns should be completely ineffective. That's not the case at all. I just think they should ONLY be as effective as they were in real life, and the figures on that speak for themselves. Uboat.net claims that aircraft sank 220 U-boats during the war, and U-boats were only able to claim 120 aircraft shot down. That means that if an aircraft attacked a U-boat the U-boat was nearly twice as likely to be destroyed as was the plane. As I say, no one is suggesting that FlAK armament should be entirely useless, but it has to be reduced to realistic levels. RUb does a lot towards this, but in my opinion, given the historical statistics, FlAK is still too effective.
True, but do bear in mind those figures don't cover all situations - the main one being where aircraft attacked but were driven off.
GlassTrain
09-12-05, 05:10 PM
I don't think that having the 300m limit is realistic at all. On the other hand, ripping up planes at 3000 meters with one burst is not very realistic, either. I think it has more to do with the accuracy of the flak guns rather than their range, as well as the aircrafts ability to sustain damage.
If you have the old SH2 manual, in the back is a story of U-615. The American plane that was attacking was surprised by the accuracy of U-615's 20mm guns at 3miles out and 3000ft altitude! While they were close, they failed to hit their mark. Later, it states that U-615's commander held the guns off until the Mariner was within 300 yards during the planes attack run (this may have refered to the Uboats machine gunners). With all guns sending a wall of lead at the aircraft, the plane still survived, tho badly damaged.
In the second attack involving 2 aircraft, the Mariner being the decoy, the 20mm's opened up again at long range, while the machine guns waited until the aircraft were within effective range focusing on the newly arrived Harpoon. All of U-615's gunners missed the low and fast flying Harpoon, which found it's mark!
In the third attack with 2 aircraft, the plane with the depth charges was smashed by the wall of gunfire, missed it's target, but managed to remain flying!
All attacking aircraft remained flying without a single aircraft downed. During the second attack the explosions of the bombs washed the entire flak crew overboard, as well as sending the entire Uboat underwater for a full 15 seconds. When the boat came to the surface, the flak gunners swam back and manned their possitions!!!!!!<--- I love that part!
I don't think that having the 300m limit is realistic at all.
It's not meant to be realistic in itself. But it is meant to make the guns act realistically overall, and it achieves this.
GlassTrain
09-13-05, 10:17 PM
Beery, I realize what the 300m limit is trying to accomplish. However, I just can't stand the fact that my flak guns are dead silent until the attacking aircraft has pretty much ensured my fate. I don't want to be the Captain with the most planes shot down, but I do want to be the Captain that has the option to use them should a desperate situation present itself.
I'm interested in what other options there might be to this. Could the sim.cfg's AI AA Guns entry for max error angle be adjusted? Could increasing the planes armor help? Or even decreasing the amount of damage from the flak gun rounds? Just interested......
BTW, the 44' Flotilla mod is awesome! New flotillas and all! :rock:
The story glasstrain quotes is very interesting, particularly about the accuracy.
Editing crewai.cfg will give you the range back, by the way (to whatever you like.)
With the IUB beta mod (RuB, modified, plus lots of stuff) running, I had a fairly typical encounter just yesterday: On my VIIC with 37cm flakzwillig, two Hurri's attacked me east of england (1940).
My flak gunner (with qualification) engaged them at 1500m, scored some hits on them, but not before they dropped their bombs and ran away. A pretty realistic engagement I thought? As it was risky, the planes were damaged but survived and the bombs dropped fairly close, though not enough to do damage.
Beery's methodology I see is to make the average game of SH3 compliant with a certain set of statistics, which is fine for him no doubt but tends to neutralise interesting gameplay. Of course, he is entitled to this approach, don't get me wrong...
...Beery's methodology I see is to make the average game of SH3 compliant with a certain set of statistics, which is fine for him no doubt but tends to neutralise interesting gameplay. Of course, he is entitled to this approach, don't get me wrong...
RUb uses real world data to give the game realistic results. It gives players a simulation that prevents the impossible and allows the full range of what was possible. The only feature that actively goes against this is the FlAK gun, because it is so uber and can't be fixed in a more realistic way. However, even with RUb's FlAK gun nerf it is still possible to shoot down many more aircraft than any U-boat did. I'm not sure how this can be regarded as 'neutralising interesting gameplay' unless, of course, your idea of 'interesting' equates to 'arcade'. RUb will never be an arcade mod - if that means it's uninteresting, so be it. The mod is intended to accurately simulate reality - even when the reality is mundane. Like I always say, RUb is meant for a hardcore minority. If you're not part of that minority, use a different mod.
hello beery and oRGy,
beery is right with his affords to weak the aa weapons of the subs,
i agree completely to his argumentation.
But i guess you got oRGy wrong in some point, Beery..
I think i´ve understand what he´s trying to say. It´s simply about eye candy!
He is right that it looks silly when standing on the bridge and your gunner is not firing at all. Would be much more pleasend to see him fire the hell out of his guns but wouln´d hit anything! :yep:
oRGy does not want to increase the effectiveness of the aa guns, he´s just looking for a better looking way to keep them low effecient.
Also the way it´s solved now in RUB you´ll hardly run out of aa shells whats also isn´t very realistic.
so you sayed it´s not possible to make the guns more inaccurate.
What else can be done to make the crew fire earlier without affection the overall kill ratio?
--increasing the armor of the planes
--decreasing the power of the shells your guns fire
what would be the side effects if you do so?
other suggestions to make aa guns weaker?
What else can be done to make the crew fire earlier without affection the overall kill ratio?
--increasing the armor of the planes
--decreasing the power of the shells your guns fire
what would be the side effects if you do so?
other suggestions to make aa guns weaker?
Here's the problem: the AI can literally hit a gnat's whisker at a range of 2 miles. That means that (except for the first couple of rounds) every bullet fired from the time the AI open up until they stop (i.e. while the aircraft is in range) will hit the aircraft. It is impossible (as far as we know) to make the AI less accurate. In RUb we tried making the aircraft armour plated to the maximum to offset this (this was the first thing we tried), but adding armour only goes so far, and after a while it starts to look ridiculous when you have aircraft taking thousands of FlAK hits without effect. We also decreased the effectiveness of FlAK shells (this was the second thing we tried), but FlAK shells can only be made a little bit less effective otherwise players will have problems when using FlAK guns against other targets - PT boats etc. The nerfs that we used up to this point began to affect the way the game looked because what was needed was a HUGE reduction in firepower to offset the AI's superhuman accuracy. The only alternative left to us was to reduce the range at which AI FlAK guns can fire. Even after doing all this, the FlAK guns are still uber. It is still very possible to shoot down many more planes than was historically possible.
The good thing about the range nerf is that it doesn't affect the player's ability to shoot at longer ranges. I like it because it gets players involved in actually using the FlAK guns, which never happened before because the player is nowhere near as accurate as the AI FlAK gunners, so in manning the guns you would be effectively reducing the boat's firepower. The problem with opening up the range again would be that we would lose the feature that makes player-participation work - there would be no point in manning the guns. In other words, what we did as a last-resort effort actually draws players more into the game. To be told (as oRGy claims) that this makes the game 'less' playable is particularly frustrating to me, because it's the exact opposite of the facts. The AI FlAK gun range nerf makes the game MUCH more playable, as well as being realistic. If oRGy thinks that letting the AI man the guns is more fun than manning the guns himself, that seems a bit strange to me. I mean what's the point in firing at aircraft if the player is effectively barred from using the guns?
In short, I'll gladly accept Orgy's stance that this is a playability issue - it certainly is, but if he's arguing to give the super-accurate AI the ability to shoot accurately at longer ranges HE'S the one who's on the side of 'less playable', because as soon as you open up the range for AI gunners, there's no need for the player to jump into the gunner's station.
The problem with discussions like these is that people who were, for one reason or another, out of the loop when we made the changes seem to assume that we haven't tried everything we could. We have tried it, but it only goes so far.
Well, its certainly unfortunate. The not-great AI of planes doesn't help. It seems planes just drop their bombs, and then go away - they don't seem to change tactics if damaged or if facing heavy flak. They also don't dive out of the sun or use other such tactics, and the crew AI doesn't care about the sun anyway.
But what I mean of interesting gameplay isn't "arcade" - though SH3 it should be noted includes many "arcade" elements such as the manual targeting minigames which work quite well - it's that situations such as the story described by glasstrain above can happen. Another word much bandied about is "emergent" gameplay.
With the flakguns just standing by until the plane has virtually passed overhead, you get very few results - either you dive, or you die. Unless you take control yourself, in which case you can be as accurate as the AI. (I actually prefer the crewman shooting by the way - I prefer to 'roleplay' the captain and concentrate on navigating the boat and ducking when I hear a bomb fall rather than manning the flak myself. Different strokes, different folks.)
The main problem with that difference between AI and human capability is simply inconsistency. You can get realistic levels of planes shot down (though we leave out damaged) with the AI manning the guns, and unrealistic ones when the player mans them, unless they're terrible at shooting.
Of course the AI gunner's range is more realistic in some ways than being a floating "Festung Flak" but due to the options it tends to cut out, less interesting. In my opinion the plane armour/flak effectiveness changes leads to good results for me - so far. Ultimately the difference between a plane being damaged and forced to return to base/abort its run/keep away versus being destroyed ingame is purely aesthetic, assuming it manged to drop it's load. If you see what I mean.
So its not a big problem if more planes are shot down than in reality - rather, what is their impact in game? Does the player respect them as was the case historically or find them utterly feeble? Can the player with a moderately equipped uboat shoot planes down before they get close enough to do any damage? And does this change over the course of the war? Aircraft after all had little influence except after 41.
Anyway I hope Beery takes note of my earlier suggestion - having the same 3 buttons available for short,medium,long range firing when they don't do anything is just bad interface design - all that needs to be done is delete the relevant buttons by placing a ; in front of the Pos= line in the relevant sections in menu1024_768.ini, I believe.
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