LuftWolf and Amizaur's Realism Mod Poll #3: Torpedo Behavior

[LuftWolf]

The most important changed to torpedos in v2.0 are: the complex seeker moddling, the non-explosions on CMs, feedback for player wireguided torpedos, and the non-surface casualty mod.

We are interested in how you think these significant changes are functioning in gameplay, together and with the rest of the mod.

Thank you in advance for your feedback! :rock: :sunny:

[Bellman]

The option to vote is not comeing up here. :hmm:

[Bellman]

Wooops - dont know what happened - ok now thanks.

[Deathblow]

The torps work great now, before they seemed too quick to acquire yet too easy to counter with CM, now the feel of the launch and acquistion just feel better and make gameplay more enjoyable.

The only thing I would change, something that I've been messing around with, is the non-surface casualty mod. Its a purdent move most of the time, to keep AI friendly fire down, but it made the torps too predictable. When someone was faced with a SS-N-27, Stallion, Mk 46, or Mk 50 its always a given that you can escape to the surface if needs be.

Oh, and maybe upping the passive sonar range to 2000?

.... on a random note. Would coding the AI helo and ASROC torps to randomized search depths be possible. It seems like all the drops I've seen were always "above the layer", making them predictable (I think it was like that before in the stock game anyway). Perhaps a random function to assign initial search depth. I'm not a coder, but perhaps something along the lines of

SearchDepth = random(40-400)
If SearchDepth -100 < MinAlt Then SearchDepth = MinAlt/2 + rnd(20)
; the If statement to keep the searchdepth too low that it bottoms out the torp

Or something along that idea. Thinks its possible/warranted?

EDIT: or maybe a better method would be:
If (rnd 100 > 50) then searchdepth = 60
elseif searchdepth = layer + 100

[Fish]

The most important changed to torpedos in v2.0 are: the complex seeker moddling, the non-explosions on CMs, feedback for player wireguided torpedos, and the non-surface casualty mod.

We are interested in how you think these significant changes are functioning in gameplay, together and with the rest of the mod.

Thank you in advance for your feedback! :rock: :sunny:

I did a few tests., but I don't see any feedback from the torpedo (adcap),even when acquiring? :huh:

[LuftWolf]

Fish, are you sure?

The new contacts show up with the prefix T. Try it with the auto TMA off to make sure they don't get merged with the original track.

Also the torpedo must be very close to the target as the sensor that provides the feedback has a range less than 1000m, so the feedback comes from the passive sensor not the active sensor. This models the inability of the datalink to carry all the information required by the active system (re: the DICASS passive vs. active mod GRAM requirement) and helps keep it from being TOO useful a too.

[Fish]

I am doing more tests tomorrow. But the one I did was a adcap active destroying a other sub. There where no contacts at all on my nav map, and none coming when the adcap acquired and destroyed the boat.
I installed your 2.00 mod over the old mod, could that be a problem?

[LuftWolf]

No that's not the problem... hmm... interesting.

Unless the sub was too quiet to be detected by the passive sensor but if it was fleeing then perhaps that's not possible.

Did you have truth off?

[Amizaur]

Feedback is visible only with show-truth off of course :).

Second thing is, that it's better to disable Auto-TMA before you activate a torpedo! If not, Auto-TMA crew tends to immediately merge the now target track from torpedo seeker with the old from ownship sensors and you don't see any difference in most cases. Try to disable Auto-TMA crew for the time of shooting.

And then watch as your torpedo chases the only MOVING target in the vicinity, ignoring those stationary :P or the other way, look at it goes for stationary ignoring the one that runs - then you know your intervention is needed :).

To Deathblow - I think you don't appreciate me ;). Have you actually tried this ? ;) I mean to escape an AI torpedo by surfacing ? You can be little surprised if you try :P

Random search depth can be programmed of course, just didn't want to add too much untested features at once.

Range of torpedo passive sensor was intentionally reduced to 1000m for wire-guided torpedos, this minimises the mess on the screen caused by torpedo feedback passive tracks. With wire-guided torpedos 1000m range should be enaugh to lock-on on noisy surface ships, and vs quiet submarines this 1000m range is even too long.

[Deathblow]

To Deathblow - I think you don't appreciate me. Have you actually tried this ? I mean to escape an AI torpedo by surfacing ? You can be little surprised if you try

You mean the fact that in about 2min a ASM will be heading my way? :lol:

Really, I did test this out throughly. Found it out when a had a couple of helo-Mk46s dropped 1000m starboard. I went into panic and turned on the truth (partially to see the new torp doctrines in action, partially because I was panicked and decided to cheat) :oops: :lol: , went deep, fired off two CMs and ordered flank speed. The Mk46s ignored my first CM, and flew through my 2nd before I could gain any distance. Went deep to 900ft, but they were still closing. Got to the point where their pinging sounded just like one long continue ring, so in desperation ordered "Emergency blow!" and shot to the surface, surpassing 43knots while on the rise in my Akula. Got to the surface with a big splash (Hunt for Red October USS Dallas style) and thought that it was a lost cause.

The torps shot upward too, and closed the final distance, but.....leveled at their min distance passed about 50ft under my hull and then their they were, about 50ft under my hull circling, reacquiring and then recircling, but never passing their min depth. Was kindof funny.

For some reason the AI didn't launch ASM my way (must have been something about their missoin scripts).

Was so funny that I repeated the mission 3 more times to replicate the scenario and each time, the torps always stopped at the min range and circled below, eventually loosing track and researching.

Haven't tried the stallions yet, but its probably the same. I could probably be exploited in MP matches or on some missions especially when the AI doesn't shoot ASM for some reason. Just thought I'ld mention it.

[Amizaur]

OK, sorry for my irony :oops: I see you did check this. I will check it too on the same map and will check if there is a bug (they should get you if there were not surfaces close) also will consider changing the doctrine if it's too easy to exploit.

edit: yep, you found a bug, congratulations! :P

It had almost NOTHING to do with anti-casuality mod :oops: . Just the default ceiling setting changed from -10ft to -100ft somehow :hmm:, I though that it's default value and didn't change that, but seems that I have changed it myself earlier for some reason or my mistake from 10 to 100, because default value as checked in standard DW torpedo doctrine was -10ft, not -100ft. Torpedo setting was -100ft default, still detonating under surface ships but not under surfaced submarine. Will change it back from 100 to 10 and should work then :-)

Thanks you very much for finding this! As I said - there may be bugs, they probably are bugs :) but I will correct them as fast as possible. If I only had a place to host fixed version... to fix this, you would have to change ALL occurences of the value -99.5 in the doctrine to -9.5, best would be to make this by Replace command in txt editor, to be SURE that no one was missed. Or, well - I planned to relase this mod as stand alone anyway, so fixed version will be available to download soon :)

Cheers!

[compressioncut]

Moved this from the thread that more concerns the heavyweight and wire guided torps...

I've run a couple of the same mission now (simple FFG vs. Victor III) and am pretty happy with the way the lightweights are performing. I ran one deliberate attack to just inside TDA (8kyd), and was unsuccessful, as you might imagine. I fired one weapon - it didn't find anything, as the V-III moved away pretty quickly. He fired a snapshot 53-65, which was no danger to me, although I stayed disciplined and ran a timed TCM, not cheating even though I had show truth on. I start the TCM upon my weapon leaving the tube, so he probably doesn't have a very good solution on me

He ran away at high speed, and I didn't have the patience to stalk him again, so I had the helo drop a "Mk.54" on him, which was an easy kill.

Second engagement, I ran in to about 5.5kyd. The weapon again didn't track anything. The 53-65 he shot caused a little more anxiety for me, but it didn't get my wake. That's a nice improvement from the essentially sure-kill torpedoes they were before, although perhaps a little too easy to evade? I've only done two, so that's hardly comprehensive.

Again he took off at 30kts, so the helo put another Mk.54 on him. Another easy kill, even though he got a decoy off. That seems correct, as the decoy rejection logic in the 54 should be that good, especially as it was super close range. I'd like to see the re-attacks they carry out if they do get spoofed.

I'll run in to 3.5kyd next time, about the absolute closest I could expect to get to a sub, I think.

Which brings up a point - the SVTT torpedo interface is a little awkward. I don't know if it can be changed. The worst thing about it is the time it takes for the settings to be input into the weapon. I can't see the OHPs combat system taking that long - ours does it as fast as you can press the buttons.

Another thing that would be nice, and could probably be changed, are the default SVTT mounted torpedoes' settings. A Mk.46-type fired from the SVTT is default 50' ceiling (not changeable), and has no RTE. It starts searching as soon as it powers up.

Those two things would make the SVTT experience a lot better.

In addition to this, I just did a mission where the target sub is openly hostile. This allowed a little better look at my counterfire weapons' behavior, as it turns out.

Anyway, I managed to close to just at TDA (8kyd, again) when the Akula fired a 65-76 at me. I counterfired two barrels, which used the previously input settings - I'm not sure how those settings affect the 46s, but the end result was that they both turned around and headed awaw from the bearing of the threat. The second one was following the first, I get that, as they were both at the same depth, but I'm not completely sure why the first took off to the north. Gyro angle should have been zero, so, I dunno. Maybe the system sets the GA according to the originally input "solution," even though there isn't a solution as such?

See what I mean - I set the torp for GA 0*, 50 foot ceiling, 0 RTE while the ships is on a heading of 300*. Now, it ends up that I want to counterfire while on a heading of 180. Has the gyro angle been automatically compensated to put the torp on a course of 300*? I'll look into that myself a bit later. This is pretty important because, especially in blue water, the 46/54 is almost exclusively a counterfire weapon when in the SVTT.

I'm almost prepared to accept that my weapons were seduced by my own wake knuckles, except that initial search depth was 250ft.

At any rate, my counterfires were completely ineffetive, except they forced the AI Akula to evade. His shot was completely foiled, I only turned three times before I began to close him again to attempt another deliberate attack. He shot first, again, although I didn't counterfire (reloading stbd tubes). Again, I managed to evade his torp without a lot of effort - he fired at about 10kyd, a 65-76.

Then he shot a missile, didn't catch what it was. Club? Probably, as it appeared to be a two-stage job. 76mm and CIWS took care of it.

I put my helo on him at that point, and to my shock, he evaded at Mk.54! The 54 did some pretty wild twists and turns to try and get him, but it failed. He amscrayed at 35kts, so I had to put the helo on him again, this time a Mk.50. It looked as though he was going to get away again, as the 50 had to do one re-attack. But the Akula stopped turning and tried a straight run, which was his undoing.

One thing I noticed with the helo dropped weapons was that they both broached the surface for some reason :hmm:

Anyway, that engagement was alot more challenging than the unsuspecting Victor III of last night, and really showed some good stuff. The only lingering concern is that the AI sub launched torps are pretty ineffective. But to be fair, if I didn't have truth on (for texting puropses, I swear!) I would have continued the TCMs for quite a while, and been at a much bigger disadvantage because of it.

[Molon Labe]

My first impressions of the torp behavior is that it is enormously improved from DW 1.01.

I've seen some prett cool torpedo behavior...torps losing target locks while passing near CMs and going astray, or sometimes re-attacking...very cool. Manuevering seems to have a huge effect as well, since it's important to get out of the way while the torp is confused. I like the shorter acquisition ranges too. :up:

One thing that seems to be happening very rarely, however, is torpedoes locking onto CMs. It seems that CM's are having a "proximity effect" instead, jamming the torpedo's sensor when it is close by. I think I'd like to see some more false locks.

Some of the Russian torpedoes seem to be losing their locks even if there are no CM's around. Maybe they are running too fast for their sensors to work well?

My other concern is that the Mk 48 doesn't seem to be the least bit effected by CM's. The Mk 50 and 54 seem rarely fooled as well. This is only with SP testing though, hopefully by this weekend I'll have some MP impressions, which will be far more meaningful.

EDIT: Further testing has shown the Mk48 can lock onto decoys and lose its lock to due maneuver. It's just a tough sucker to lose. :up:

[Fish]

Feedback is visible only with show-truth off of course :).

Second thing is, that it's better to disable Auto-TMA before you activate a torpedo! If not, Auto-TMA crew tends to immediately merge the now target track from torpedo seeker with the old from ownship sensors and you don't see any difference in most cases. Try to disable Auto-TMA crew for the time of shooting.

And then watch as your torpedo chases the only MOVING target in the vicinity, ignoring those stationary :P or the other way, look at it goes for stationary ignoring the one that runs - then you know your intervention is needed :).

To Deathblow - I think you don't appreciate me ;). Have you actually tried this ? ;) I mean to escape an AI torpedo by surfacing ? You can be little surprised if you try :P

Random search depth can be programmed of course, just didn't want to add too much untested features at once.

Range of torpedo passive sensor was intentionally reduced to 1000m for wire-guided torpedos, this minimises the mess on the screen caused by torpedo feedback passive tracks. With wire-guided torpedos 1000m range should be enaugh to lock-on on noisy surface ships, and vs quiet submarines this 1000m range is even too long.

Yes, show truth was of. And I didn't use ships sensors, just to be sure its from the torpedo what I see on the nav map.

[Amizaur]

You mean, you didn't use ownship active sonar ? Well, the Auto-TMA crew merged active track from torpedo feedback with ownship passive track for me :-/ personally I disable Auto-TMA before enabling torpedo, to not get the new tracks merged immediately by auto-crew.

[Fish]

Reinstalled the mod (overwritting), and no it works. :up:

[LuftWolf]

Glad to hear it Fish!

Thanks for trying the mod, let us know what you think! :know: :up:

[Deathblow]

The only lingering concern is that the AI sub launched torps are pretty ineffective. But to be fair, if I didn't have truth on (for texting puropses, I swear!) I would have continued the TCMs for quite a while, and been at a much bigger disadvantage because of it.

Our we sure that the AI launched 53-65k and the 65-76 are getting their default depths set to 10m and not 60m? It would make a big difference if the AI isn't setting their wake-homers to a appropriate depth. I'm not sure how to tell though. Perhaps some additional code in SubAtksurf to insure a 10m searchdepth? (On a side note, do subs ever mistakingly fire wakehomers on other subs when they should be firing 53mm and the like? Just curious)

On a side note: was experimenting with tweaking the wake-homing. Nothing to do with your modding Amizaur, just curious to how the AI worked. Was tweaking the visual range of the 65-76 to 250 to try to understand what it does and saw the funniest site: The torp was homing into the wake. The ship AI then figures out that its a wakehomer and cuts its engines to drift. But instead of overshooting, whenever the torp lost the wake it just stopped dead in the water (1kt speed) and waited! :lol: They sat, ship and torp, for about 2min dead in the water about 250 yards from each other. Eventually the ship powers up its engines again, and zoom, the 65-76 takes off again after it :o, jumps out of the water twice in a row and homes in to kill it! Was the freakiest torp behavior I've ever seen. hehe, now that's a smart torpedo! I've yet to be able to replicate the scene since, looks just like a freak incident. Wish I new how, I'ld take a fraps of it. Just wanted to share.

OK, sorry for my irony I see you did check this. I will check it too on the same map and will check if there is a bug (they should get you if there were not surfaces close) also will consider changing the doctrine if it's too easy to exploit.

Glad I could help. Please don't mistake my bug hunting for critiscm. I only mention it because I have ZERO self-control and will exploit an AI complusively :oops: :lol:. It would indeed be some tricky coding to get the AI to set the depth to 100ft if and only if a surface ship was in range. I wouldn't even know where to start. :doh:

[LuftWolf]

On a side note, do subs ever mistakingly fire wakehomers on other subs when they should be firing 53mm and the like? Just curious

AI weapon use is dictated by Database target flags and max/min range. The AI is coded to employ weapons only with specific flags against specific targets (eg. the wakehomers used to be flagged for both surface and sub targets in the stock db, our mod changes it to surface only so they only fire against surface ships, also you cannot fire them from the nav map or fire control against identified submerged contacts, but you can still reclassify the target and fire if you really want to fire a wakehomer at a sub, at least with the 65-76, whose max depth has been reduced to a bit below -400m).

[LuftWolf]

Also, I think that the reports you guys have been posting about the lack of effectiveness of the AI wakehomers is because of the default ceiling issue (-100 instead of -10) rather than any changes applied to the wakehoming sensors. Once that has been fixed, they should behave as normal. :arrgh!:

Edit: Molon Labe has PM'ed me that perhaps those reports are premature. I wanted to assure you that the new wakehoming sensors do function properly so a reasonable explanation for the behavior is the known ceiling issue which could reasonably be affecting AI torpedo launches, in any case, as it needs to be corrected as things stand now anyway.

We would especially appreciate any information you have about AI ASuW torpedo behavior. :ping:

[LuftWolf]

I just thought I write a short AAR on an in engagement SW vs. Victor III. Note: this is with the CM effectiveness changed to 50%

I had the Victor clearly on all my sensors at about 90 degrees, moving south at 7kts at about 7kyds. I circled around behind him so that I was moving due east at 5 kts slightly to the west of true north, not fearing counterdetection. I fired a single ADCAP at about 7.5kyds RTE 6kyds.

Since I was going to watch with the truth on, I decided not to give the torpedo any input to see if the Victor could evade the torpedo.

The Victor immediately dropped a passive decoy and sprinted in the opposite direction. When the torpedo enabled, it was within seeker range of the Victor and it started homing immediately. After the torpedo had closed the distance within about a nm or the Victor ended its sprint and turned 120 degrees. After picking up the mk48 on active intercept, the Victor dropped an active decoy and sprinted straight for a short period of time before making a sharp turn. The torpedo acquired the decoy during the first leg of the sprint and then had both within its cone and acquired the Victor briefly very close before making its last turn. The last turn put the victor just outside the cone of the adcap and the torpedo sailed by the victor.

So it seems it is possible for the AI to avoid torpedos under some conditions, although with the feedback and wireguidence I probably would have nailed him. :up: :arrgh!:

[Amizaur]

Guys, wakehomers have their own doctrine, I didn't touch it so it's not possible that wrong ceiling setting or something from torpedo doctrine causes that. Also in all cases I seen, AI set depth of their wakehomers right. The problem may be, that AI is trying to shoot head-on shots and this just don't work with wakehomers... ;) in standard DW, the range of visual sensor was so big that even if torpedo passed 400m ahead of the ship's bow, it detected it and guided to kill - even head-on without any wake. Now they are pure wakehomers and NEEDS a wake to guide, head-on shots are not very effective, also of torpedo passes ahead of the ship insteead of behind it - will not home, there is no wake...
AI subs tend to fire wake-homers like any other torpedo, so aiming at a target, instead of aiming at target's wake. I think something may be done with it on doctrine level later - some deviation of torp course to make sure it is aimed behind the target, not at the target.
And after all - who would expect head-on wakehomers shots to be effective ? Especially if you evade and it don't ever see your wake ?
Yes, I know they often were before ;) but they were in fact no wakehomers, but torpedos with additional 500m visual seeker ;)

[Molon Labe]

Guys, wakehomers have their own doctrine, I didn't touch it so it's not possible that wrong ceiling setting or something from torpedo doctrine causes that. Also in all cases I seen, AI set depth of their wakehomers right. The problem may be, that AI is trying to shoot head-on shots and this just don't work with wakehomers... ;) in standard DW, the range of visual sensor was so big that even if torpedo passed 400m ahead of the ship's bow, it detected it and guided to kill - even head-on without any wake. Now they are pure wakehomers and NEEDS a wake to guide, head-on shots are not very effective, also of torpedo passes ahead of the ship insteead of behind it - will not home, there is no wake...
AI subs tend to fire wake-homers like any other torpedo, so aiming at a target, instead of aiming at target's wake. I think something may be done with it on doctrine level later - some deviation of torp course to make sure it is aimed behind the target, not at the target.
And after all - who would expect head-on wakehomers shots to be effective ? Especially if you evade and it don't ever see your wake ?
Yes, I know they often were before ;) but they were in fact no wakehomers, but torpedos with additional 500m visual seeker ;)

Sorry, AM, but I had a 65-76 detect a stationary Durance AOR from the front and make the kill. The weapon passed within 300 yards though.

[Amizaur]

Detection range of new terminal seeker is around 50m, so head-on torp have to pass within 50m to lock, 50m means in practice almost direct hit.
But I tested this maybe 10-20 times, who knows maybe for very big targets det range is closer to 100m, I still don't know how to use det curves to get results I want :-/ Well, even 100m is better than original 500m :)