Destroyers Discussion (getting rid of pin point drops)

[HEMISENT]

Silly question on TT's Mini Tweaker.
Changing values in the tweak files is no problem but I haven't a clue how to restore the original value. Do I need to make seperate backup copies of everything or are these kept somewhere-what is the restore file process? Also, what function does Refresh Tweak File serve. Could not find it anywhere in the read me's
My aplogies if this has been asked already but I could not find the answer.

[CB..]

First test,

Turned all type 3 escorts to type 4 on 505

Result = Crash :( :( .

.

try this

plus going into the roster/british/sea folder
and opening the cfg files gives a possible concrete way to alter the type entrys to match any changes made in your missions etc and might help with any problems this creates

brief excerpt from the huntIII cfg

[UnitClass]
ClassName=DDHuntIII
UnitType=4
AppearanceDate=19410601
DisappearanceDate=19460101
DisplayName=BR DD Hunt III


changing both these entrys to the desired type might get past any "check" the game does when loading a mission etc---that's if it has any effect worth a damn anyway--


just in case you miss it in the above post--

if this doesn't work then the type entry is "hard coded" ( even now i still can't say that phrase without getting an involountary twitch-- a hang over from SH2) and will need deeper hacks to get at it---

[gouldjg]

Cheers CB

Yes I noticed I changed type in mission but not in the cfg files for the ships.

By the way,

I don't suppose anyone can post what the first 2 lines were for the 505 mission DD's were.

I deleted the class and name and forgot to back up :huh: :damn: .

I am just praying this is not hardcoded and that it does have a effect.

I will catch up soon I am sure.

[CB..]

heres the entire 505 mission easier than editing it to just show the class etc



:up:

[gouldjg]

Thanks :up: :up: :up:

Saves me an hour or 2.

You can delete now if you wish :up:

Right now comes the testing,

Test 1

So I am going to ensure both the ships and the mission are using type 4's.

If that don't

Test 2

I may edit the DD's as a different group just for the fun of it and to try and detatch them from the protect their carrier responsibilities.

I think something is forcing DE's to return to formation after a period of time unless they have strong strong reasons not too.

Either this or Like you say, they weigh up the odds and decide to leave best in attack.

If this don't work

Test 3

I will check if my skull can withstand a bullet :dead:

[CB..]

tell you what is puzzling me-- has anybody found which file or files contain the AI instructions---not the sensor information or method of calculating sensor information but the actual AI instructions---

the start ASW stop ASW--drop DC's --don't drop DC's --move fast to intercept-- move slow and monitor -- etc etc etc instructions--
anyone?

a good old look round those files with a hex editor would certainly give some food for thought--i dunno where they are---

[gouldjg]

I have been looking for that file for ages now.

I just do not seem to find any indications as to which it could be and although I scan with a hex editor through as much as I can, I can never really find anything that looks similar.

[CB..]

I have been looking for that file for ages now.

I just do not seem to find any indications as to which it could be and although I scan with a hex editor through as much as I can, I can never really find anything that looks similar.

just had a good old scan thru the exe file and the sim.act file absolutely nothing--

i did find something that could be of use with the help of TimeTravellor---

if the hydrophones sensors calculates the RPM of the subs engines in order to calculate wether it's detectable or not--
that's if i have understood the info linked by teddy bar

if we increase the RPM needed to maintain a certain speed then the sub will become easier to detect--


do a search for RPM/KT in the SH3sim.act file and it looks like this could be edited---not by me i hasten to add-- but TT might know what to do--

if this worked then that's another possible method of attacking the problem--



ther's allso mention of something called the SIM MACHINE ACTION CONTROLLER--but that's beyond my ability to find

[gouldjg]

Am I right in thinking the following,

1. The sim.cfg

[AI detection]
Lost contact time=15

I am thinking this is only effective with DD & has no effect with DE.

[CB..]

Am I right in thinking the following,

1. The sim.cfg

[AI detection]
Lost contact time=15

I am thinking this is only effective with DD & has no effect with DE.

AFAIK it affects all the escorts--what i think might be the issue with the DE's for you is that you have a high speedfactor (are you still using this?)

if the speedfactor is higher than the maximum speed of the DE (which is much slower than a full on DD) then the DE will be able to maintain contact with you for much longer periods of time --ie: pernamently--as it's max speed is less than the speedfactor-- no blind spot when it excellerates to drop DC's at all- or when it is going at flank

that would make it appear that the lost conatct time wa only applying to the faster DD's -- it's just that the DE's haven't lost contact--

just a theory tho--

say on the plus side if we are going to find the AI routines you've show what we should be searching for

AI DETECTION

as this is the precise wording used for this in the cfg file it must allso be the way it is wored in the main files somewhere-- find the word detection somewhere and it might be close--

[timetraveller]

Silly question on TT's Mini Tweaker.
Changing values in the tweak files is no problem but I haven't a clue how to restore the original value. Do I need to make seperate backup copies of everything or are these kept somewhere-what is the restore file process? Also, what function does Refresh Tweak File serve. Could not find it anywhere in the read me's
My aplogies if this has been asked already but I could not find the answer.

Mini Tweaker should make a copy of the file the first time it is changed. "Copy of .....). But only the first time.

Refresh Tweak File reloads the tweak file and display the values again using the new tweak file roadmap. It's for those people who want to edit the tweak files on the fly (with Mini Tweaker open), resave, then refresh them. Like if you're experimenting with a value, unsure of its type (maybe it's displaying funny) and trying different possibilities to see if it's a Single, Long type, etc.). Use Open In Notepad to open the tweak file.

TT

[timetraveller]

tell you what is puzzling me-- has anybody found which file or files contain the AI instructions---not the sensor information or method of calculating sensor information but the actual AI instructions---

I believe it to be hard coded in either sh3.exe or sh3.dll or SH3Sim.act. In most games in my experience the actual AI logic is hard coded.

Which makes it basically untouchable unless you are a Uber hacker with a good disassembler and a lot of time on your hands.

We may have to be happy with what we can tweak in the DAT, SIM, ZON, and CFG files.

TT

[timetraveller]

say on the plus side if we are going to find the AI routines you've show what we should be searching for

AI DETECTION

as this is the precise wording used for this in the cfg file it must allso be the way it is wored in the main files somewhere-- find the word detection somewhere and it might be close--

Me curious too. I did a search through all the game files and the word "DETECTION" is used only in these files (all CFGs by the way, except for the mission and menu one):

C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data\Cfg\AirStrike.c fg
C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data\Cfg\Sensors.cfg
C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data\Cfg\Sim.cfg
C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data\Menu\en_menu.tx t
C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data\MultiMissions\E nglish\Storm\storm.mis

TT

[CB..]

tell you what is puzzling me-- has anybody found which file or files contain the AI instructions---not the sensor information or method of calculating sensor information but the actual AI instructions---

I believe it to be hard coded in either sh3.exe or sh3.dll or SH3Sim.act. In most games in my experience the actual AI logic is hard coded.

Which makes it basically untouchable unless you are a Uber hacker with a good disassembler and a lot of time on your hands.

We may have to be happy with what we can tweak in the DAT, SIM, ZON, and CFG files.

TT

many thanks TT -- i've checked the act and exe files i'll check the dll file allso--what i was hoping was that similar to SH2 there would be some-where a set of files or entrys in files that listed amoungst the normal code recognisable words describing variuos parts of the AI routines--
in SH2 there were statements like--ASWapproach ASWCreep etc (i can't rememer the exact terms but this gives the idea)
giving a mental picture of how the AI went about it buisness--and sometimes you get lucky and discover you can substitute one command for another (same amount of letters in the term used) and get something interesting gameplay--
any way it's just frustrating not knowing where the stuff is--

will check the DLL for clues--it certainly doesn't appear to be in the exe or act files at least using any conventional language a lay man (such as myself) could read --which isn't saying much i know--given it could well be there in full and i wouldn't recognise it for what it was--

##EDIT !! :up:

cheers for the info on the detection search---it doesn't seem to be the key word--that's half the battle knowing what precise term to search for--
was worth a shot--

[timetraveller]

i did find something that could be of use with the help of TimeTravellor---

if the hydrophones sensors calculates the RPM of the subs engines in order to calculate wether it's detectable or not--
that's if i have understood the info linked by teddy bar

if we increase the RPM needed to maintain a certain speed then the sub will become easier to detect--

do a search for RPM/KT in the SH3sim.act file and it looks like this could be edited---not by me i hasten to add-- but TT might know what to do--

if this worked then that's another possible method of attacking the problem--

ther's allso mention of something called the SIM MACHINE ACTION CONTROLLER--but that's beyond my ability to find

I did a scan on RPM and KT in the ACT file you mentioned. Unfortunately, they are only mentioned in a textual sense, i.e., used in a console (bridge log) type message.

SIM MACHINE ACTION CONTROLLER is a new one for me. Any other info in it??

TT

[timetraveller]

Sorry to keep spamming the forum, guys.

Have you looked at the RPMDetLevel value in Sensors_dat.txt in the Mini Tweaker? Appears to be the RPM Detetion Level for each of the sensors. I know this is the player sub and not the AI, but....???...maybe.

TT

[CB..]

i did find something that could be of use with the help of TimeTravellor---

if the hydrophones sensors calculates the RPM of the subs engines in order to calculate wether it's detectable or not--
that's if i have understood the info linked by teddy bar

if we increase the RPM needed to maintain a certain speed then the sub will become easier to detect--

do a search for RPM/KT in the SH3sim.act file and it looks like this could be edited---not by me i hasten to add-- but TT might know what to do--

if this worked then that's another possible method of attacking the problem--

ther's allso mention of something called the SIM MACHINE ACTION CONTROLLER--but that's beyond my ability to find

I did a scan on RPM and KT in the ACT file you mentioned. Unfortunately, they are only mentioned in a textual sense, i.e., used in a console (bridge log) type message.

SIM MACHINE ACTION CONTROLLER is a new one for me. Any other info in it??

TT
in the sh3sim.act file
it's found at
033556 (if that's the correct way to locate it?)

:oops: it maybe that Sim action machine and controller are seperate terms sorry bwt that and it may just refer to actions perfromed by the sim.cfg as those entrys follow imediately afterwards--


at 034a28 there's the rpm/kt=% which is why i thought it may be editable i'm shooting in the dark here as i don't have any real crasp on hex stuff at all--

[CB..]

Sorry to keep spamming the forum, guys.

Have you looked at the RPMDetLevel value in Sensors_dat.txt in the Mini Tweaker? Appears to be the RPM Detetion Level for each of the sensors. I know this is the player sub and not the AI, but....???...maybe.

TT

if this is spam i'm a fan!!! great stuff reckon that's EXACTLY it!!! many thanks TT again!! :up: :up: :rock:

if we in effect make the subs props noiser at a given speed then this will allows us to (in effect) increase the performance of the DD sensors dynamically--and very precisely-- :sunny:

yep rpm detection level --has to be it!!!

[timetraveller]

in the sh3sim.act file
it's found at
033556 (if that's the correct way to locate it?)

:oops: it maybe that Sim action machine and controller are seperate terms sorry bwt that and it may just refer to actions perfromed by the sim.cfg as those entrys follow imediately afterwards--

Yes, you have the correct location method. I see it. The text names in this area seem to be some of the same ones in the Sim.cfg file. I don't believe there is room in some cases to hold values next to them. What they are probably used for is what programmer's call "literals". Most likely used by the program to know what name to look for in the Sim.cfg file.


at 034a28 there's the rpm/kt=% which is why i thought it may be editable i'm shooting in the dark here as i don't have any real crasp on hex stuff at all--

This is something similar to the above. "rpm/kt%". Usually % means a fill-in value. The text and its fill-in value are usually used in a log message. Probably not for any AI value.

TT

[CB..]

:up: cheers TT keep it coming !! :rock:

[timetraveller]

CB,

Another idea too on the RPM thing if the RPMDetLevel doesn't work. I am betting that if you increase the max RPM on the subs, you will get more detection chance at a given speed. For instance, the VII-C max RPM is 480. Raise it to 600-700 or so and I bet you are detected more often. Somewhere in this sim it has to check the current RPM level of units for detection purposes. My bet is it is proportional to the current speed.

TT

[CB..]

i will definitely try that TT --thanks! :yep:
have you seen at all any indication on how silent running actually works?--thinking along the same lines-- making the sub easier to detect at normal settings but making silent running slightly more effective to compensate--

[timetraveller]

i will definitely try that TT --thanks! :yep:
have you seen at all any indication on how silent running actually works?--thinking along the same lines-- making the sub easier to detect at normal settings but making silent running slightly more effective to compensate--

No, I haven't. But it might be possible to up the max RPMs in the sub's SIM file, then also change the speed settings for the engine telegraph in its CFG file. Make AheadSlow very small. I am betting this will keep the RPMs down at that speed. With the max RPMs, say for a VII-C set up to 600, maybe this will work. .05 for AheadSlow might bring the RPMs to 30. Other RPMs at higher speeds will (hopefully) be higher than before and cause greater chance for detection. Worth a try if you guys haven't done it already.

And of course this is in case the RPMDetLevel change goes nowhere.

TT

VII-C .CFG file example-

Original:
[EngineProperties]
AllStop=0.00
AheadSlow=0.40
AheadOneThird=0.57
AheadStandard=0.80
AheadFull=0.94
AheadFlank=1.00

New:
Original:
[EngineProperties]
AllStop=0.00
AheadSlow=0.05
AheadOneThird=0.57
AheadStandard=0.80
AheadFull=0.94
AheadFlank=1.00

[Col7777]

Going off the above method, I altered my sub speed higher to compensate having no deck-guns, my slow speed is 4kts instead of 3kts, it doesn't SEEM to make any difference but I'm not as good a skipper as CB. In other words I get detected and toasted a lot. :)

[gouldjg]

Thanks TT & CB

Great ideas coming out here.

I have spent the best part of the day checking if DD do a better escort than DE etc etc blah blah blah.


I will be editing u505 mission tommorow and removing the link between DE and their leader yet leaving them in the same places.

I just need to find out, if they are a bit more free to move when loose and not tied to objects i.e. the give up times etc.

Maybe worth a try if a DE was the leader of the convoys or are they already in campaign games.

Not that there is much I can do even if they do behave better :shifty:

All pretty futile experiments but I gotta hope and see if anything can come from it.


I also think ships are pretty blind to the scope here so am thinking of tweaking my scope to be very tempermental.

Remember, I like playing with all warnings off :smug: .

I have yet to try these settings on the improved convoy mod though so maybe things may not be that bad in game after all.

[CB..]

No, I haven't. But it might be possible to up the max RPMs in the sub's SIM file, then also change the speed settings for the engine telegraph in its CFG file. Make AheadSlow very small. I am betting this will keep the RPMs down at that speed. With the max RPMs, say for a VII-C set up to 600, maybe this will work. .05 for AheadSlow might bring the RPMs to 30. Other RPMs at higher speeds will (hopefully) be higher than before and cause greater chance for detection. Worth a try if you guys haven't done it already.

And of course this is in case the RPMDetLevel change goes nowhere.

TT

VII-C .CFG file example-

Original:
[EngineProperties]
AllStop=0.00
AheadSlow=0.40
AheadOneThird=0.57
AheadStandard=0.80
AheadFull=0.94
AheadFlank=1.00

New:
Original:
[EngineProperties]
AllStop=0.00
AheadSlow=0.05
AheadOneThird=0.57
AheadStandard=0.80
AheadFull=0.94
AheadFlank=1.00

outstanding nice one TT :sunny:

if it all hangs together i reckon that takes care of the lot!!!



COL!!! i think the sytem works of the engine revs per minute rather than the actual speed your travelling at--- so increasing the max RPM in TT's minitweaker or if you want to be a little less easy to detect then decrease the max RPM -- then you adjust the speed at 1/3 standard etc thru the cfg file as TT says to get a good balance---

i aint a terribly good skipper Col-- ive been testing all the time so i've been using the external view a lot--first time i tried without the external view i got nailed---i'm actually going to reduce the max rpm for the sub to hopefully lower the chance i get detected and see how that goes---if all these possibilites have an effect there's an almost limitless degree of flexibility :up:
fingers crossed---if the DD type and or side entrys have an effect as well then we have a tool kit that should do just about anything we need--

[gouldjg]

One last thing,

I have been looking at the debris.dat

Near the bottom you will find all the other special effects in the game.

I cannot see any reference to noise here though so this may be futile.

If you remember, I managed to get the oil spot connected to my sub conning tower as a test and it worked.

Would be cool to find any ways of adding a noise factor to these DC splashes but maybe a bit too hopefull.

I am presuming it would be too much work to add rpm to dc splashes and then use the duration similar to what controls the bold.

Time for bed and to stop dreaming.

Scrap that,

We will end up with carpet bombing effects.

[Gammel]

Very interesting reading here... :up:
Sorry for just popping in.

Timetraveller, your tweaker is awsome and a reason for me to come back to the game!! Even someone like me is now able to modify files i never was able to deal with. :rock:
I just managed to make the Battleships open fire at realistic ranges.

About that to accurate DC dropping...
I use Jungmans tweaked Ai_Sensors file with good results. It´s now possible for me to survive U505...
Great idea CB to use the "Detectometer" for testing...

Persisting problem for me is when the DD´s got your position the rush in like sportcars and place the charges direct into your conning tower.

So how about lowering the Depthcharges accuracy, not the detection abilitys of the DD´s?
Anyone tried to alter the "depth precision" value in the depthcharge.sim file?

Especially the charges are always placed at the exact deep, as far as i know it was hard to detect the subs exact deep in ww2.

2. thing to change would be the unrealistic ship acceleration, but for many reasons that will be hard an time expensive work...
Please excuse my english

[gouldjg]

I have just been looking at the italian ship mod thread.

Marki

Has been able to add different angles of DC racks at rear. I have dropped my hint as to the benefit it would make if we had DC wider angles so they went down sides of sub rather than on top of.

With Depth precision,

Try hedgehogs and 300 or 400 depths and then 300 or 400 precision. You will get premature exploisions on 30% but still get hit. I have not fully tested if this has any side effects like poor aiming though.

With DC

People tend to stick at about 25-35 and you get some random behaiviour.

I went to 100 and the DD's blew their reer ends off.

Good luck

[Gammel]

did some testing with the depth precision value in the 505 mission...

i got good results with 75...
game feels now like the surface skipper has some problems to get the exact deep of the submarine...

[Redwine]

Very interesting reading here... :up:
Sorry for just popping in.


Come in, welcome to the party :up:



Persisting problem for me is when the DD´s got your position the rush in like sportcars and place the charges direct into your conning tower.

So how about lowering the Depthcharges accuracy, not the detection abilitys of the DD´s?
Anyone tried to alter the "depth precision" value in the depthcharge.sim file?


I think so this will not solve your problem, i was with same problem at first. Increasing depth precision value, they make the launch more spead in depth, this help because not every depth charges will explode at your depth, good and helps to survive, but ...

May be better if you tweak the sensors angles, horizontal and vertical angles.

They droops the depth charges on you head, beacause in example the pasive sensor can sense you up to 170 degrees.

0* is just up to the sky, 90* is just at front of the ship, bow, and 180 is just down. With a 170* and a short minimun range by default .........DDs can detect you up to they are over your head.

Try a max bearing of 120Left-120Right for pasive, and 15left-15Right for active.

A beam depth with min elevation 80, max elevation 120 for both pasive and active. (make later little diferent adjust in max elevation for early and later sensors, in example 110 for early and 120 for later sensors)

Try a minimun range of 50 for active and 200 for pasive.

At first i have your problem, now i have the inverse, they droops the depth charges at my rear zone near the stern.

If you want my actual files to see behavior i can send them to you..... but i am having a little problem, i have short detection ranges.

May be real, but i like to rise up DDs detection ranges.

My files a very independant of weather factor, and i am very sthealt (green) at silent running.

:up:

[HEMISENT]

Maybe worth a try if a DE was the leader of the convoys or are they already in campaign games.

Don't think DD's or DE's are scripted in as leaders in convoys as too often I have torpedoed the lead merchant ship and the convoy then mills around or stops completely. Once the convoy loses its guide ship everything goes to hell really fast. It's as if the merchants have lost the one vessel that knew where the next waypoint is. . Never took out a warship in a convoy and had this happen. There was a discussion about this posted about a month or so ago.

[Marhkimov]

I think our only way to fix DD behavior is through the hard-coded files themselves. We keep looking for a simple way out by changing the effectiveness of their weapons and equipment, but I don't see how it will work.

For example:

By the default behavior of DD's, I'm going to assume that they are programmed to drop depth charges whenever they lose contact with the u-boat. That is why by default the minimum angle was set for 170. Because when the u-boat enters into an angle >170, the DD is programmed to drop his depth charges, and by that time he will be right above your head.

That's the problem with changing it to a lower value, i.e. 150. When the u-boat enters into angle >150, the depth charges will fall, but obviously the DD will be waaay behind you if his minimum angle is 150.

Do you guys follow?

So yeah, nerfing sensors to 150 will make him lose you, yes, but it will also screw with his ability to successfully drop DC's on you... And I have a feeling that is not what we want.

And this is just a small example. Other "nerfs" probably produce other minor side effects too.



I'm hoping someone will crack the behavior hard-coding. It's the only way...

[Redwine]

I think our only way to fix DD behavior is through the hard-coded files themselves. We keep looking for a simple way out by changing the effectiveness of their weapons and equipment, but I don't see how it will work.

For example:

By the default behavior of DD's, I'm going to assume that they are programmed to drop depth charges whenever they lose contact with the u-boat. That is why by default the minimum angle was set for 170. Because when the u-boat enters into an angle >170, the DD is programmed to drop his depth charges, and by that time he will be right above your head.

That's the problem with changing it to a lower value, i.e. 150. When the u-boat enters into angle >150, the depth charges will fall, but obviously the DD will be waaay behind you if his minimum angle is 150.

Do you guys follow?

So yeah, nerfing sensors to 150 will make him lose you, yes, but it will also screw with his ability to successfully drop DC's on you... And I have a feeling that is not what we want.

And this is just a small example. Other "nerfs" probably produce other minor side effects too.



I'm hoping someone will crack the behavior hard-coding. It's the only way...

I am not agree Marhkimov....

I tryed with values reduced down to 100/105/110, and they droops the dc at good place.

The reduction in angle only make they losse contact with you early or later, then they stops to make corrections into their curse to follow you.

For that i was useing 200 min range in both sensors and was enforced to reduce the value for active to 50, because they never ram my tower.

In other way..... if they launch the dc when are at 170* at side of you, the dc never will hit you.
The reduction in angles make them losse contact and stops to make coreections, then the dc always drops at back of you, in a side attack, i think so..... due to that the dev. team had set those high angles, but in this way they become Ubber DDs.

[HEMISENT]

Question I think for CB.
Trying out a campaign mission set in 1943. Being hunted by a single C class DD
I keep playing a scenario saving it then making a change and replaying same scenario for comparison.
Using your Sim.cfg setup I went back to default AI.DAT file to try something. Looking in Sea folder the C class uses the 123p, 128p & 138p hydrophones depending on year(I'm assuming these are the passive sensors). I'm playing with the minimum ranges and right now I'm at 750 also changed the AI_hydrophone to 750(from your 1000) to see what happens. I did not tinker with the 123a & 128a(active sensors?) do these need changing also?

DD is less aggressive but just as relentless as your @ 1000 setting. My stealth icon goes green when inside 750-800m yet DD will slowly meander over to my general area sort of siffing around(meter still green) When he's about 200m distance he will kick it up, point straight for my position and drop a few DC's generally right on me not pin point but close enough then slowly wanders away. At no time has the DD pinged me, the stealth icon stays green and I am deep at SR. Seems changing the min range stops the active pinging. I wouldn't have a problem as he knows generally where I am except he's not pinging so how can the AI know exactly where I am.

I'm probably wasting my time but I'm just trying to get a handle on how one set of sensors affects a given ship in a given situation.

[Marhkimov]

Redwine, so you're saying we just need to find the happy-medium between uber and dumb DD's?

Man, it's so much easier said than done...


Anyways, keep up the good work guys! I am totally lost when I enter this thread... :dead:

Cheers!
Marhkimov.

[Redwine]

Redwine, so you're saying we just need to find the happy-medium between uber and dumb DD's?

Man, it's so much easier said than done...


Anyways, keep up the good work guys! I am totally lost when I enter this thread... :dead:

Cheers!
Marhkimov.

I done that, of course for my taste....

I need to rise up a little bit the dummies, they do not detect my scope by radar, in example in Happy Times, and Brahman, they are blind, it is similar than in stock settings, but i like a happy medium as you say.

I rise up settings of early radars but no way........ clase C and J looks very bad radar users, they looks good with sonars, even those wich has not active sonars like Flower and Clase C, but with radar they are nule, they only react or shoot my scope when it is in sight.

Instead, Buckley and Evarts works too god with their radars.....

May be real, for it that age was called "Happy Time" but i want a little bit more action at early times.

:up:

[Marhkimov]

MAybe you guys should just swap sonar and hydrophone equipment?

Just go into the equipment file of ships and replace the "suspect" equipment by one that works better. I can't remember who said it, but someone said that the American sonars were uber? I dunno. Maybe just swap it with a British one.

EDIT: oh, hehe. I think Redwine said that... ^Previous post


Hey, that's an idea. If you want to test a certain sonar or hydrophone, you can just replace it in all DD's or DE's. Then hop into campaign mode and test away... Or has someone already thought of that?

[Redwine]

MAybe you guys should just swap sonar and hydrophone equipment?

Just go into the equipment file of ships and replace the "suspect" equipment by one that works better. I can't remember who said it, but someone said that the American sonars were uber? I dunno. Maybe just swap it with a British one.

EDIT: oh, hehe. I think Redwine said that... ^Previous post


Hey, that's an idea. If you want to test a certain sonar or hydrophone, you can just replace it in all DD's or DE's. Then hop into campaign mode and test away... Or has someone already thought of that?

Yes, is a good idea, but i put it away almost yet, because some considerations.

Why for ? Imagine a third party mission, the bulider make it and looks at some dummy DDs, he says :

- Mmhh... they are so duumy, i will put 6 instead 3....... -

Then when you play the mission with 6 souposed dummy DDs, if you had replced their equipment into your installation, for new and more effective equipment....... then the mission with 6 of them will be a nightmare.

I am leting this as a last choice.

:up:

[Marhkimov]

Just go into the equipment file of ships and replace the "suspect" equipment by one that works better

Ooops, that was a typo.

I meant replace it with one that is not as good. My bad...

[CB..]

Question I think for CB.
Trying out a campaign mission set in 1943. Being hunted by a single C class DD
I keep playing a scenario saving it then making a change and replaying same scenario for comparison.
Using your Sim.cfg setup I went back to default AI.DAT file to try something. Looking in Sea folder the C class uses the 123p, 128p & 138p hydrophones depending on year(I'm assuming these are the passive sensors). I'm playing with the minimum ranges and right now I'm at 750 also changed the AI_hydrophone to 750(from your 1000) to see what happens. I did not tinker with the 123a & 128a(active sensors?) do these need changing also?

DD is less aggressive but just as relentless as your @ 1000 setting. My stealth icon goes green when inside 750-800m yet DD will slowly meander over to my general area sort of siffing around(meter still green) When he's about 200m distance he will kick it up, point straight for my position and drop a few DC's generally right on me not pin point but close enough then slowly wanders away. At no time has the DD pinged me, the stealth icon stays green and I am deep at SR. Seems changing the min range stops the active pinging. I wouldn't have a problem as he knows generally where I am except he's not pinging so how can the AI know exactly where I am.

I'm probably wasting my time but I'm just trying to get a handle on how one set of sensors affects a given ship in a given situation.

you only need to change those sensors that end in a P (passive) (A is for active) but it's best to change all the hydrophones to be sure--especailly when testing the campaign as you never quite know what your going to bump into along the way

sounds good-- :up: i have had problem with the DD's not using active sometimes --or only very briefly--

i have to say that AFAIK and sad to say--that the hydrophones can detect your depth--i'm not sure on this but that's my guess--

beyond that keep tweaking untill you get something your happy with--

that's what i am going to do-- by reducing the maximum distances dramatically for the hydrophones this starts the DD's using their sonar again --i think the DD's only use their sonar if they have to---and lets face it if the hydrophones don't detect depth then the DD's will allways have to check with sonar--so IMO the hydrophones can detect depth under certain circumstances--
try increasing the noise factor to 1.00 in the sim.cfg
and experiment with the revs per minute setting etc (see previous page)

[Col7777]

I'm not in work today so I can test a bit, I had the same problems as a few others yesterday to access the forum, I tried most of the afternoon.

Any way back to the topic, again just out of curiosity I tried something else, I took out all the figures from the Sim.cfg entries and replaced them with RAND, like this example of a section of it:

[Radar]
Detection time=RAND ;[s]
Sensitivity=RAND ;(0..1)
Height factor=RAND ;[m]
Waves factor=RAND ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=RAND ;[m2]

I got the similar effect as when I renamed the Sim.cfg notice I said SIMILAR. The DD's were aggressive but it may have been my imagination but they didn't seem as aggressive as the renamed Sim.cfg test.
If it was my imagination and they were as aggressive then perhaps the game wasn't reading the RAND remarks, it was just a test to see if perhaps we might get different effects each time we played.
I'm wondering if the RAND is read can it be placed somewhere in the Sim.cfg so when we play who knows what might happen instead of kind of knowing what is going to happen.

[timetraveller]

Col7777,

Wow, RAND! I didn't know about that one!! Excellent!! :up:

TT

[CB..]

Nice one Col!!!
perhaps just using it for the detection time would give the most "human" results whaddya think?

HEMISENT:

i increased the noise factor in the hydrophone sectio of the sim.cfg to noise factor=1.0

and lowered the maximum revs for the electric engines by 50

the DD's use their active sonar as normal with these settings;

[caspofungin]

hey tt -- thanks for your input and tweaks

have you thought about trying to add the "noise" effect of the decoys to the dc's? to "blind" escort sensors for a couple of minutes after a dc goes off -- any thoughts about how to go about this or if its even possible?

[timetraveller]

hey tt -- thanks for your input and tweaks

have you thought about trying to add the "noise" effect of the decoys to the dc's? to "blind" escort sensors for a couple of minutes after a dc goes off -- any thoughts about how to go about this or if its even possible?

Thanks, caspofungin. Yes, there's been some talk of that. Not sure how it can be done, unfortunately. It's beyond my capabilities.

TT

[Redwine]

I need some help....

What is souposed "detonate_depth" do into DepthCharges.sim file ?

I dont note any significant change when change this value, i done that hoping the air released depth charges detonate more depth but no way.

And .... it is normal the early DDs as clase "C" and "J" do not detect my periscope by radar, in example into Happy Times and Barhman missions ?

I attempt to rise up the early DDs radar detection capabilities, but the game make non sense of it.
They are a little dummy when i rise my scope out of the surface.

Thanks in advance.............

EDIT :

Cool7777......... RAND ? :o , so good !

What a good found ! :up:

[Col7777]

My above post regarding the RAND stuff, I was thinking IF it isn't read in the cfg file then why can't we edit certain lines out, then the game will read some of the cfg and rely on the Sim.dat file as a back-up, thus making the DD's uber in certain departments, just a thought?

So if it is looking for a hydrophone setting and it isn't there, we know it is there in the dat file so it should use that by default.

[timetraveller]

My above post regarding the RAND stuff, I was thinking IF it isn't read in the cfg file then why can't we edit certain lines out, then the game will read some of the cfg and rely on the Sim.dat file as a back-up, thus making the DD's uber in certain departments, just a thought?

So if it is looking for a hydrophone setting and it isn't there, we know it is there in the dat file so it should use that by default.

Good point, Col7777.

My understanding is that if a CFG file entry exists for a value, and the corresponding value in the DAT file is = 0, then the CFG file value applies. If the value in the DAT file is not = 0 then the DAT file value applies. Redwine might have some more infor on this.

You could try removing one ore CFG file entry for a test and see what happens. If the game doesn't choke, and assumes the DAT file value, then all is good.

TT

[gouldjg]

Hello all

I got a cold and this site is being very tempermental lately.

@CB

Going bck to what you was saying ealrier about the random groups that actually use the sim.cfg.

When comparing the sensitivety of say, the actives and visual to the ones that are prescribed in the sensors_dat, no wonder we are getting the occasional Dumb DD's as far as actives are concerned.

I am inclined to believe it may be best to set all DD's settings to the same as a 1942 setting of a specific piece of equipment.

I will be working on this all day tommorow to see where I get too.

p.s.

I have tried all sorts of editing for the single mission 505 but nothing conclusive as far as DE's and DD's groups and non groups.

I am leaving that area to someone who understands more.


@Redwine

Regarding the visual, I agree, they are blind but which setting makes them that way?.

Regarding the Q type sensors that do not seem to be on any individual ship. Has anyone got any ideas as to wether these may be the generics for the random groups or they might be what tells the depths and maybe are on every ship but as ai_instruction.

Regarding making DD actives blind by adding noise to explosions etc.
I think this may screw the game too much and a carpet bombing effect will occur so am staying clear.

How are things going with you active sensors REDWINE, fancy sharing some settings and comments :D

[caspofungin]

if you're talking about QGA, QCL, and QCE -- they're the us sonar and hydrophones, found on us escorts. they seem to be more limited in range and angles by default than the rn sensors.

[Redwine]

@Redwine

Regarding the visual, I agree, they are blind but which setting makes them that way?.

I look some of the early has type 286 and 290, they can detect by default a min surface of 1.5 m2.

I am drop down this value for early equipment, to make them more sensible.

I will rise the min surface valur for later radars to make them less sensibles.

Any way, some stange thing happens in my files, i open it with mini tweaker, and looking into radar sensors many values was zeroed,

I put the file into my desktop, and replace by an original file, and open it with Minitweaker to look original settings, then i reinstall the file from the desktop, and when open it for restore values, the values was not zeroed anymore..... :doh: :hmm: .

My settings on radars are near to default, i am changing the min surface now, and the min height, i am setting now about 1m, any thing under 1m is theoretically not detectable by the radars with this setting.



@
How are things going with you active sensors REDWINE, fancy sharing some settings and comments :D


Well, if you want my file they are yours, you can try and look the settings and comment.

[Redwine]

:huh: After found some of my settings was zeroed using TT's Mini Tweaker, and after remove and reinstall the file..... early DDs become more dangerous, i only plays 4 mission, two U-505 and two Happy Times.....

Those dummy DDs in Happy Times are dangerous now.... :88) , even the little Flower wich seems to be the most anger :hulk:

I was worry about to lose my "sthealt silent running" but not.... :smug: , playing U-505 i am sthealt for pasives at telegraph Low plus silent running. :cool: , at telegraph low with no silent running i am detected, i think so it is not real but good for gameplay.

Any way i can make the clase C, J and Flower detect my scope by radar.... they use type SC, SF, 290 or 286.... :hmm:

[Kaleunt]

Redwine, be carefull, all sensors from type 268 down to type 286 are
british radars not active sonars!

[Ducimus]

Been trying to catchup with the thread.

It appears that the AI itself is the problem and experiements have been made on it to see if its changeable.

Personnaly i think this is beyond my scope. I think its going to require some hex edting. Although it felt like CB was onto something with the "side" settings and SH2 simiularites.. I find it odd that a british destroyer would be set to 0 (netural if i remember correctly), and yet other destroyers (american ones?) would be set to 1 for allies.

Anyway im just gonna read more and post less unless somethign hits me in the face with a brick.

Right now im a skeptic. I know the pin point drops can be "fixed", I know we can make ideal conditions to increase the chance of detection. As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink . Im reminded taht orginaly the campign was scriped, and they reversed themselves and added the dnyamic campaign later by popular request. It could bethe AI in the single missions we're seeing what the orginal scripted campaign would have been like. Campaign mode just doesnt feel the same compared to single missions.

[gouldjg]

I think it will soon time for new threads with a summary for what has been discovered to date and how it seems to be working in game.

It is fairly obvious we all have different approaches and maybe we should do a upto date summary on a new thread for each approach. I know work is still continuing and nobody is really wanting to place any full mod out due to the (not everyone will be happy syndrome) but maybe we can start a new discussion so more people can get the instant benefits of some of the things that are available to try.

We can still dicuss and proceed with further developments as we go also.

I am finnishing off my stuff and trying it all on RUB with IC and no detection metres to see if difficulty has gone up and uberness has gone down. If this works for me to a satisfying level then I will post my settings including the changed RUB crew ratings campaign files.

This will take me a couple of more days to wrap up and test but I am now tired of chasing the DD, DE ai. I suppose when I have no external view and sensors or warnings, the game will be better immedietly.

I will just live with it and be happy that somethings have been improved for me.


@ Redwine

I would be greatfull to try your actives and radar settings red once your happy with them. :up: Please post or send after your done.

@CB

I am watching your progree with the RPM and engine speed tweeks with gret interest an dhope you crack it. :up:

@TT

Thanks for all you tools as they have been a absolute essential element in improving this game for everyone.

If any person deserves the Modders freind award for this game, it is you in my book. :know: :know: :know: :know: :know: :up:

@Hemisent

Thanks for the feedback, I can now look into those aspects that were failing at the time. :up:

@Col7777

Thanks for some super info :up:

@Others

Thanks for helping with tests, ideas, and general chat :up:

I am not finnishing or anything, I am just half convinced that we are stuck with the ships ai as it is without DEV team hard coding.

I think any noise added to dc explosions will cause side effects that DD will carpet bomb that area.

I am happy with hydrophone settings that I have done.

I just want better active settings now IMHO

I also want better Visual settings

And have to trust Redwine with the Radars cos I am cluless on their history or game effects.

I need to start looking at damage setting for myself now to see if I can only get deaths through sinking & Flooding.

I want collisions to be almost certain death or at least crew get killed and I am on the way down.

This alone takes a lot of time to do but hopefully TT's new sound tweaker can help me in some areas that were previously going to hinder some of my plans.

Thanks folks

Will keep reporting anything new should it come up as an issue.

[Redwine]

Redwine, be carefull, all sensors from type 268 down to type 286 are
british radars not active sonars!

:up: Agree Kaleunt ...... ,my problem now is those old radars do not detect my periscope, then it make your life too easy.

But with an averaging the other sensors, Clase C, J and Flower become a little bit dangerous now, even if they radar cant detect my scope.

The objective i follow is :

Just imagine there ar 4 leves of dstroyers

Dummy - Experienced - Veteran - Elite

I want to convert Dummies into Experienced

And Elite into Veteran.

So have only two levels, not too dummy and not to elite.

:up: :up:

[Redwine]

@ Redwine

I would be greatfull to try your actives and radar settings red once your happy with them. :up: Please post or send after your done.


http://rapidshare.de/files/8688662/7_Stage.zip.html

This set of files has not the same behavior than the set making me happy last two days....

After found some radar settings zeroed with Mini Tweaker, and replace the file, behavior changes.

But after many touching, it is so similar.

I can understand those extranges behaviours, in example if you dont remove the renamed files, or this case, when i found some settings zeroed, but after reinstall the files they was not zeroed, may be the game was making no sense of some data, sadly i can recover that exact behaviour, but it is good.

Not finished, need extensive tests, specially in campaingn, i am testing only in single missions, with early DDs and with later DDs.

Try and comment. I think so i dont forget any file in the pack.....

:up:

[Kaleunt]

Redwine, i think that the AI_sensors.dat you use is the file with the snorkel
fix from Jungman. To make the snorkel quasi undetectable from airborne radars Jungman has
tweaked the minsurface and the minheight values of all AI-Radars.
The MinHeight value was "0" in the stockgame AI_Sensors.dat, Jungmann
has increased this value to 2,5m for all AI-Radars types. So all
destroyers are blind from sea level up to 2,5m from the surface. A periscope is by this way impossible to detect by radar. The minsurface value (the surface(m²)of the object to be detected ) was modified too.

[Ducimus]

I think it will soon time for new threads with a summary for what has been discovered to date and how it seems to be working in game.

It is fairly obvious we all have different approaches and maybe we should do a up to date summary on a new thread for each approach.

A recap / summary is probably overdue. We have 23 pages of brainstorming here. I think a summary is in order for clarification, and as a general report on what progress has been made and what remains a problem.


Personnaly after the tests ive run on sonar, im a little burnt out and have resigned to myself that the problem is the AI itself. To me, that just ruins the campaign game entirely. Its just a shooting gallery. :down: Ive avoided unrealistic things in my play in order to increase the challenge, but after this i think i may just uberize the DD's, grab myself an XXI in 43', play tell 45 and just go nuts with the tonnage.

[gouldjg]

Just one last thought I had.


I was looking at the visual settings and noticed enemy speed = 15

Any ideas????

I am hoping this may be part of why they sometimes do and dont spot torpedoes in the water plus the waves factor etc.

We all know that ships have evasion in built i.e. the acadamy and that ship that shoots off as soon as you launch.

Can this be exploited to work better?

I wonder if ????????????

[Col7777]

The problem of having ANOTHER thread on the same subject is we will be jumping back and forward all the time, I can see post like:

"Not sure which thread it was in but... " and/or "I think I saw something about this in the other thread."

I won't know which thread to report any changes if any, or shall I report on both threads?

[HEMISENT]

Good point Col7777, I'm confused enough jumping between all these pages.

[CB..]

i agree don't go starting a new thread--this one's not done yet by a long shot--

continuing the slight poetic theme--

There comes a time
in every mods development,
where in mystery it can
find it self in envelopement,
but keep on and persist
and finally in the end,
we'll all find out
it isn't a white elephant--

i thank you-- :-j

[Redwine]

Redwine, i think that the AI_sensors.dat you use is the file with the snorkel
fix from Jungman. To make the snorkel quasi undetectable from airborne radars Jungman has
tweaked the minsurface and the minheight values of all AI-Radars.
The MinHeight value was "0" in the stockgame AI_Sensors.dat, Jungmann
has increased this value to 2,5m for all AI-Radars types. So all
destroyers are blind from sea level up to 2,5m from the surface. A periscope is by this way impossible to detect by radar. The minsurface value (the surface(m²)of the object to be detected ) was modified too.


Yes i based on Jungsman mod, wich is my standar installation before this changes.

If not remember bad Jungman set for min height is 1m not 2.5m.

I think so 1m is a good value, i set it, if you maintain your scope under 1m it will be not detected, it looks easy but not, waves make the scope rise and down height and you see how the sthealt meter become green/red.

But Jungman min surface are 0.03 m2 for later radars, wich is a surface of 10cmx30cm, about 4x12 inches wich is so sensible, it is 1/3 of the surface of your keyboard.

But the early radars was a min surface of 1.5 m2...... a little bit poor sesnsibility.

If you see in the settings, i reduce the min surface for early radars and increase it for later ones.

I rise the early radars to the min surface or middle age, and decrese a little bit the later ones.

Any way, even with this help, early radars can not detect my scope, i need to increse their sensibility, may be real in early war times, but make the game so easy, ........ i am thinking in to put all radars as later war times.

[Col7777]

CB,

Your thoughts/advice please, did you read my above post where I said, if a line is edited out of the Sim.cfg using the ; I'm thinking the game might use the default from the Sim.dat file.
I'm wondering which lines you recommend if any to edit out to try this, I tried a few but I might be editing the wrong line, it might have been my imagination but there was a bit more aggression from the DD's, I used the stock Sim.cfg btw.

[gouldjg]

Sorry guys

Ok no new threads,

This bloody site is not letting me in lately anyway.

How many player here use sh3 commander?

@redwine

Have you tried stiebler uboat radar mod. I suppose with this you could use later war settings anyway if it is not so bad.

I have not yet tried your settings due to work issues but will do tonight or tommorow.

[Col7777]

I tried most of the afternoon to access the site.

This RAND stuff I think isn't being read, I tried putting the RAND in a different place like in the mission files like this example:

Detection timeRAND=1
SensitivityRAND=1
Fog factorRAND=1
etc etc

All it did was act like the renamed cfg we did earlier, the DD's were uber.

[CB..]

CB,

Your thoughts/advice please, did you read my above post where I said, if a line is edited out of the Sim.cfg using the ; I'm thinking the game might use the default from the Sim.dat file.
I'm wondering which lines you recommend if any to edit out to try this, I tried a few but I might be editing the wrong line, it might have been my imagination but there was a bit more aggression from the DD's, I used the stock Sim.cfg btw. :up:

yup Col that's basically the trick i'm relying on by using these hydrophone section entrys (or where-ever the game gets it's defaults from at leat even if not from the AI_sensors.dat)

[Hydrophone]
range factor=1 ;[>=0]
fog factor=0 ;[>=0]
light factor=0 ;[>=0]
waves factor=0.2 ;[>=0]
speed factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
enemy speed=0 ;[>=0]
aspect=0 ;[>=0]
noise factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
sensor height factor=0 ;[>=0]
already tracking modifier=20 ;[detection probability modifier]
decay time=150 ;[>0] already tracking bonus decay, in seconds
uses crew efficiency=true ;[true or false]


note there's NO sensitivity entry--which is why (using your discovery :cool: ) the phones get a substantial boost--which was task number one for me-- :up:



i think i have now a set up which i would be happy (if i was going to release a mod) to call DES1 for SH3 :D

based on prolonged experiences in campaign patrols--

one--
the DD's are doing their job--as they have a RIGHT to do--they are not fast asleep untill you get detected--they are pernamently on duty -as far as the events you percieve in the game go anyway-- your just another "possible" sub contact to the DD's - not GOD
two--
it is possible to get well within torp launch range 2 - 3000 metres of a convoy undetected---the "detect-O-meter" may be red tho--
but being in the right position for a torp attack is extremely difficult as the DD's know where the best positions are and are usually there before you--
making this extremely dodgy--
three--
any torp attack on any convoy results in an instant response from the DD's-- usually a very dangerous one--if you had one DD sniffing aound before the torp attack --you suddenly get a whole lot more coming over and joining in--resulting in dangerous and effective DC attacks on your approximaite location--and it's possible to evade these attacks and lose them again (the degree of difficulty depending on the date and how much you use the AIDS external view etc etc)
four--tonnage is no trivial matter to accumalate--
and allways involves risk-
five-- the entire situation during a convoy attack is extremely fluid-- and impossible to predict--it could ALLWAYS go either way--
six--
LOL-- the little sub detection meter--is now a HUNCH-O-METER
you now have a hunch that you have been detected--not a definite comfirmation-- which is a whole lot more fun--- :D
seven--
the decoys are VERY effective -- but this comes at a price--deploying a decoy is a great way to confuse that lone tracking DD into dropping his DC's in the wrong place--BUT don't expect him to be a LONE DD for long once you've deployed a decoy-- oh no--you just 100% CONFIRMED your self as a definite sub contact---and the other DD's are now going to get involved--and they have the right to do this--a decoy is SUPPOSED to attract attention after all-- :yep:
so the decoys are more fun to use--and are highly tactical

and finally ALL these effects are there every time i play a campaign patrol--

i get far less tonnage -- and have far more fun--not a set up for the faint hearted tonnage kings!!--

[gouldjg]

CB

I am sold

Give it to me :up: Please :cry: pretty please.

If this leaves me in some dark as to what is happening on the sea level then I am happy to try it out and provide some feedback.

I am at a loss with anything more to add unless any new discoveries are made.

I also want to move onto sub damage and sinking work.

[CB..]

it's easy G'

just start with a stock AI_sensors.dat

and make two alterations--

one-
REDUCE all the hydrophones max distances by 4000 metres--so if it's 6500 as stock reduce it to 2500 metres--do this for all the hydrophones--

two-
INCREASE the minimum distances for all the hydrophones to 1000 metres--

three-
use these sim.cfg entrys

[Mech]
Waves amplitude=0.4 ;[0,1]
Waves attenuation=0.02 ;>=0

[AI Cannons]
Max error angle=20 ;[deg]
Max fire range=5000 ;[m]
Max fire wait=22 ;[s]

[AI AA guns]
Max error angle=5 ;[deg]
Max fire range=1000 ;[m]
Max fire wait=7 ;[s]

[AI detection]
Lost contact time=6 ;[min]

[Visual]
Detection time=0.5 ;[s] min detection time.
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1) at (sensitivity * max range) we have a double detection time.
Fog factor=0.3 ;[>=0]
Light factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=400 ;[m2]
Enemy speed factor=15 ;[kt]

[Radar]
Detection time=1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=3.0 ;[m2]

[Hydrophone]
range factor=1 ;[>=0]
fog factor=0 ;[>=0]
light factor=0 ;[>=0]
waves factor=0.2 ;[>=0]
speed factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
enemy speed=0 ;[>=0]
aspect=0 ;[>=0]
noise factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
sensor height factor=0 ;[>=0]
already tracking modifier=20 ;[detection probability modifier]
decay time=150 ;[>0] already tracking bonus decay, in seconds
uses crew efficiency=true ;[true or false]

[Sonar]
Detection time=5 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Waves factor=0.50 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=10 ;[kt]
Enemy surface factor=200 ;[m2]
Lose time=2



four--
reduce the maximum revs for the electric engines using the mini tweaker by 30 to 50 revs per minutes--i reduced mine to 250 rpm max--

and that's it--

lots of scope to tweak it to individual requirments --but remember i have not at any point tested this in single mission play--ONLY in full career campaign play-- :up:

[gouldjg]

Thanks CB

By the way, did you get anywhere with the type theory?

[CB..]

Thanks CB

By the way, did you get anywhere with the type theory?

:up: hope it helps!!

i haven't tried the type theory yet i must admit--felt i was so close with the other stuff that i didn't want to change tack and get confused--reckon the type thing could be good if it works tho--

[gouldjg]

Well going of what you said about the random groups using the sim.cfg, I was starting to wonder if it is not just best to use Sh3 commander and have different settings for different years. To me this just seem a lot more simple than trying to fix one file for all the years which seems to be immpossible without one effecting the other.

I asked JScones and he thinks it can be done easily and the method is already in Sh3 commander.

I will try your settings and then decide which way I am going go on all this.

Hopefully I will get my ideal game settings also.

[CB..]

Well going of what you said about the random groups using the sim.cfg, I was starting to wonder if it is not just best to use Sh3 commander and have different settings for different years. To me this just seem a lot more simple than trying to fix one file for all the years which seems to be immpossible without one effecting the other.

I asked JScones and he thinks it can be done easily and the method is already in Sh3 commander.

I will try your settings and then decide which way I am going go on all this.

Hopefully I will get my ideal game settings also.


i see--- :zzz:

[HEMISENT]

Well going of what you said about the random groups using the sim.cfg, I was starting to wonder if it is not just best to use Sh3 commander and have different settings for different years. To me this just seem a lot more simple than trying to fix one file for all the years which seems to be immpossible without one effecting the other.

Guys
In the beginning of my testing I was using SH3 Commander for startups as always however I noticed after going back and forth that it was rewriting the sim.cfg for some reason. The method I used to use was Rollback Commander/ Edit whatever file/Start game thru Commander/Play game. I noticed that the changes I had just made were gone and the file had defaulted. Once I stopped using commander for testing everything stayed put. No clue if this was a glitch on my part or something else. Just a thought that I have no explanation for and may be an anomoly.

BTW. Getting onto this site lately is like pulling teeth from a chicken. What gives?

[Der Teddy Bar]

Well going of what you said about the random groups using the sim.cfg, I was starting to wonder if it is not just best to use Sh3 commander and have different settings for different years. To me this just seem a lot more simple than trying to fix one file for all the years which seems to be immpossible without one effecting the other.

Guys
In the beginning of my testing I was using SH3 Commander for startups as always however I noticed after going back and forth that it was rewriting the sim.cfg for some reason. The method I used to use was Rollback Commander/ Edit whatever file/Start game thru Commander/Play game. I noticed that the changes I had just made were gone and the file had defaulted. Once I stopped using commander for testing everything stayed put. No clue if this was a glitch on my part or something else. Just a thought that I have no explanation for and may be an anomoly.

BTW. Getting onto this site lately is like pulling teeth from a chicken. What gives?A classic example of why I say that you should test with a clean install. :up:

[HEMISENT]

Well going of what you said about the random groups using the sim.cfg, I was starting to wonder if it is not just best to use Sh3 commander and have different settings for different years. To me this just seem a lot more simple than trying to fix one file for all the years which seems to be immpossible without one effecting the other.

Guys
In the beginning of my testing I was using SH3 Commander for startups as always however I noticed after going back and forth that it was rewriting the sim.cfg for some reason. The method I used to use was Rollback Commander/ Edit whatever file/Start game thru Commander/Play game. I noticed that the changes I had just made were gone and the file had defaulted. Once I stopped using commander for testing everything stayed put. No clue if this was a glitch on my part or something else. Just a thought that I have no explanation for and may be an anomoly.?

A classic example of why I say that you should test with a clean install. :up:

You are soooooo right on that one. I learned my lesson.

[Txema]

POSTED BY CB

it's easy G'

just start with a stock AI_sensors.dat

and make two alterations--

one-
REDUCE all the hydrophones max distances by 4000 metres--so if it's 6500 as stock reduce it to 2500 metres--do this for all the hydrophones--

two-
INCREASE the minimum distances for all the hydrophones to 1000 metres--

three-
use these sim.cfg entrys

[Mech]
Waves amplitude=0.4 ;[0,1]
Waves attenuation=0.02 ;>=0

[AI Cannons]
Max error angle=20 ;[deg]
Max fire range=5000 ;[m]
Max fire wait=22 ;[s]

[AI AA guns]
Max error angle=5 ;[deg]
Max fire range=1000 ;[m]
Max fire wait=7 ;[s]

[AI detection]
Lost contact time=6 ;[min]

[Visual]
Detection time=0.5 ;[s] min detection time.
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1) at (sensitivity * max range) we have a double detection time.
Fog factor=0.3 ;[>=0]
Light factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=400 ;[m2]
Enemy speed factor=15 ;[kt]

[Radar]
Detection time=1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=3.0 ;[m2]

[Hydrophone]
range factor=1 ;[>=0]
fog factor=0 ;[>=0]
light factor=0 ;[>=0]
waves factor=0.2 ;[>=0]
speed factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
enemy speed=0 ;[>=0]
aspect=0 ;[>=0]
noise factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
sensor height factor=0 ;[>=0]
already tracking modifier=20 ;[detection probability modifier]
decay time=150 ;[>0] already tracking bonus decay, in seconds
uses crew efficiency=true ;[true or false]

[Sonar]
Detection time=5 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Waves factor=0.50 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=10 ;[kt]
Enemy surface factor=200 ;[m2]
Lose time=2



four--
reduce the maximum revs for the electric engines using the mini tweaker by 30 to 50 revs per minutes--i reduced mine to 250 rpm max--

and that's it--



CB,


Let me ask a question: by doing just these modifications you obtain a consistent and quite good gameplay in the Silent Hunter III... but how do you obtain this consistent behaviour if the destroyer abilities depend also on the "CrewRating"? Don´t you need to set a fixed "CrewRating" to get a consistent behaviour?

Thanks for your help !!!

Txema

[CB..]

Let me ask a question: by doing just these modifications you obtain a consistent and quite good gameplay in the Silent Hunter III... but how do you obtain this consistent behaviour if the destroyer abilities depend also on the "CrewRating"? Don´t you need to set a fixed "CrewRating" to get a consistent behaviour?

Thanks for your help !!!

Txema

IMO the crewrating can be used to lower or higher the difficulty level without adversely affecting the way the "mod" works--so you shouldn't have to worry too much about that particular variable--it's not a finnicky set up--more fire and forget--it tends to take care of it's self no matter what other variables come into play--sensors change as per the date as normal so do the weapons obviously--weather and so on--it seems to handle these normal changes with the appropiate varience in difficulty etc

i haven't tried to put a straight jacket on the game here ---the game does what it normally does--except with more usefull and interesting convoy escorts --that's all--every-thing that was possible in the stock set up is still possible now--and that includes user customisations etc etc--

i'm completely satisfied that it solves the problem i joined the thread to solve--for me--and with the brainstorming done here by all there's plenty of scope for other approaches-
but for my situation (dumb-ass convoy escorts)- this solves the problems with this aspect of the gameplay in a flexible and elegant way--

[Col7777]

I like CB's setup, I'm using it and I'm finding it a lot more challenging.

Again just out of curiosity I inserted this line from the air files just to see what would happen.

Elite Airbase Modifier=1

I got attacked almost at mission start, I was wondering if the aircraft gave my position away, I'm not sure.
The thing is the game accepted it so there is more to this Sim.cfg yet.

[CB..]

I like CB's setup, I'm using it and I'm finding it a lot more challenging.

Again just out of curiosity I inserted this line from the air files just to see what would happen.

Elite Airbase Modifier=1

I got attacked almost at mission start, I was wondering if the aircraft gave my position away, I'm not sure.
The thing is the game accepted it so there is more to this Sim.cfg yet.

Cheers Col as usual i owe it to one of your inspired "stabs in the dark"!! :up: :rock:

did you get attacked by an aircraft or a DD?

[Col7777]

Oops! Sorry Cb, it was an aircraft, he came in from nowhere and dropped one on me, minor damage, I didn't see it again but shortly afterwards I was in contact with the convoy.

I'm noticing different behaviour with different warships since we started all this, something I never bothered about before.
I'm sure some do act differently to others or is it my imagination?

[CB..]

Oops! Sorry Cb, it was an aircraft, he came in from nowhere and dropped one on me, minor damage, I didn't see it again but shortly afterwards I was in contact with the convoy.

I'm noticing different behaviour with different warships since we started all this, something I never bothered about before.
I'm sure some do act differently to others or is it my imagination?
ok cheers Col! wonder what was happening?

i've noticed the warships tend to have quite distinct mood swings - tho i haven't managed to put my finger on what's going on!--i reckon your right!!

[Ducimus]

On the subject of pinpoint drops...


Has anyone noticed that AI sonar (passave and active) have a limit as to how deep they will go? (300 meters)

Going deep with a sub is basicaly, using and old phrase , "flying under the radar". Adjusting these values to 400 or 500 meters, unless its my imagination (and it could very well be), excepting hedge hogs, they're aim seems to be absolute crap. Even if i sit there at a dead stop. All other values for ai sonar being default.

[Redwine]

On the subject of pinpoint drops...


Has anyone noticed that AI sonar (passave and active) have a limit as to how deep they will go? (300 meters)

Going deep with a sub is basicaly, using and old phrase , "flying under the radar". Adjusting these values to 400 or 500 meters, unless its my imagination (and it could very well be), excepting hedge hogs, they're aim seems to be absolute crap. Even if i sit there at a dead stop. All other values for ai sonar being default.

Yes, -300 is the limit by default. :up:

The use of a limit was discused time ago, to simulate a thermal layer or a behavior similar.

Sadly we have not thermal layers modelated, almost nobody found anithing about them.

Just another choice, but you will be completely undetected under that value, it can reduce the game play interest.... :hmm:

[Ducimus]

Yes, -300 is the limit by default. :up:

The use of a limit was discused time ago, to simulate a thermal layer or a behavior similar.

Sadly we have not thermal layers modelated, almost nobody found anithing about them.

Just another choice, but you will be completely undetected under that value, it can reduce the game play interest.... :hmm:


I first noticed something was up when i was testing the AI on the U505 mission. I sat there about about 325-350 meters watching the depth charges for accuracy and i noticed right before they got to my depth they just disappared. Another big hint was when i just stopped getting contact information on the map.

I tried changing this, but their accuracy only seemed to get WORSE. TO me diving deep and pushing the boat to the absolute limit to try and get under a DD attack is half the thrill. "Deep cheif... yes deeper."
But being absolutely untouchable just kills the thrill.

I guess its a matter of scale. Longer DC drops, larger explosions,....shorter DC drops smaller explosions. Its easier to scale back the Depth charge experience then it is to ramp it up, which is what ive been trying to do. Too many AI adjustments are required. Too much work.

[Col7777]

What about the times when going to that depth isn't possible, I've often been in 60mts so I can't go deep?

[Redwine]

I first noticed something was up when i was testing the AI on the U505 mission. I sat there about about 325-350 meters watching the depth charges for accuracy and i noticed right before they got to my depth they just disappared.

Many objects in the sim has a max Depth value, it is the max depth at wich the game will medeled the objects, and then they disapears. Submarines was set at -300.
When TimeTraveller Crush Depth Mod was released, to increase this value up to 500m was needed, if not subs was capable to dive beyond the render max depth :P


I tried changing this, but their accuracy only seemed to get WORSE. TO me diving deep and pushing the boat to the absolute limit to try and get under a DD attack is half the thrill. "Deep cheif... yes deeper."
But being absolutely untouchable just kills the thrill.

Yes, that problem was discused when TT Crush Depth Mod was released.
Some people try increasing the Depth Charges fall spedd to compensate that accuracy. Plus may be that was the reason why the dev team dont modeled the historical crush depths.....

That behavior you descrived was from real life, most part of the war, depth charges was limited to a determined depth for explosion, and sub was capables to dive depper, they just push the sub too deep, and wait paying chess the DDs become empty of depth charges.

I like that behavior, it maintain you submerged, and submerged you can not sink any thing.

I like too those 30 hours hunt where you need to sacpe to not become empty of oxigen and batteries. I obtain this behaviur with CB's DES% V2 Mod, and DC Lethal Radius Mod.

But some people dont like these behaviors, and think they reduce game play interest.




I guess its a matter of scale. Longer DC drops, larger explosions,....shorter DC drops smaller explosions. Its easier to scale back the Depth charge experience then it is to ramp it up, which is what ive been trying to do. Too many AI adjustments are required. Too much work.

Sorry my bad english, :lol: i am not sure if i understand well this part.

:up:


What about the times when going to that depth isn't possible, I've often been in 60mts so I can't go deep?

Certain.... many times i have damage, and reach the max depth is imposible, it is the good part, maintain sthealt, be silent, hit and run..... slowly and silent, if they catch you and your sub receive some damage..... you cant go deep.

Normally i use crash dive depth, 70 m, and 120 m.
I note DDs precision dont falls too much if i go too deep, but damage and flooding be more dangerous when too deep.

[CB..]

Dulcimus
have to admit i've never been able to push a sub that deep with-out crushing--but i haven't taken advantage of the crush depth mods--

you'd have to perhaps balance your crush depth with the 300 metres sensor limit- or experiment with setting the sensor limit deeper one or the other -- bit of a "no-brainer" really that one--and at the end of the trip your not going to be sinking too many merchants at 300 metres plus--(as Red says)--so if the DD's have forced you down that deep then they've done their job--any possible adjustments to make the DC's more accurate at that depth is going to really bite you in the butt extremely hard if you get DC'd at 100 metres--there are times when you just have to use your imagination--me i'd adjust the crush depth to around 270<-->310 metres and re-create the tension that way---at those sorts of depths if your really after gameplay-- the difference is very minor--your rarely going to get nailed at those sorts of depths so any tension is practically illusionary anyway--which is what your saying i know-- but the only rational answer is to reduce your crush depth and use a bit of imagination ---i prefer the stock crush depths i must admit--not realistic perhaps but if it's a choice between realism and gameplay --i'll take gameplay every-time--both no doubt would be nice but there you go--realism in simulations is a fairly esoteric concept anyway!

[Ducimus]

What about the times when going to that depth isn't possible, I've often been in 60mts so I can't go deep?

Call me chicken but i avoid the engilsh channel like the plauge :D



you'd have to perhaps balance your crush depth with the 300 metres sensor limit- or experiment with setting the sensor limit deeper one or the other


Yeah i tried setting the AI's passive and active sonars to -500 (500 meters.) Their accuracy sucked. Nowhere NEAR me. It could very well be distancet traveled at 2 knots at 350 meters, vs how long it takes a DC to reach that depth is just too much of a difference so they will ALWAYS be off the mark unless you set the sink rate faster. Doing that however, if you get caught in the shallower depths your really hosed.




I guess its a matter of scale. Longer DC drops, larger explosions,....shorter DC drops smaller explosions. Its easier to scale back the Depth charge experience then it is to ramp it up, which is what ive been trying to do. Too many AI adjustments are required. Too much work.

Sorry my bad english, :lol: i am not sure if i understand well this part.

:up:




To keep a certain level of danger:

-at deeper depths you might have to increase sink rate OR expolsion radius. But you also have to adjust and test changes to the AI since they're clueless past 300 meters. Otherwise charges will always fall harmlessly to your stern presenting no danger at all as long as you creep forward.

- at stock depths all you have to do is decrease the explosion radius to keep the same level of danger since DC's can reach you much more quickly and hence are more accurate.

[Kaleunt]

In game, all submarines have a maximum depth of -300m,it's only
their crush depht witch change, depending the type of uboat.
As you can see the maximum detection depht of all sonars is
equal to the maximum depht of of your uboat. Also the depht charges
are generically modelled, only one type for all the war! This generic
model as a sinking rate of 3 meters/seconds, you can't input varying
sinking rates.

[timetraveller]

Hi Guys,

About the maximum sensors limit of 300 meters depth-

I did a search on this figure and it is defined in numerous places in AI_Sensors.dat as well as Sensors.dat.

Examples, AI_Sensors.dat hydrophone and sonar are set to -300. I bet by lowering that value you might not be able to evade it when diving to more than 300 meters.

The tweak file AI_Sensors_dat.txt already has the ability to change these values. Might be worth a try if anybody has interest in testing it.

TT

[HEMISENT]

TT
I was just thinking about that. I'll give it a shot in your mini tweaker. I'm like some others tho and have never pushed my boat to that depth level, I usually hang at around 160 - 200m. More later

CB
I have changed everything over to your current setup per you recent post. Works pretty much as advertised except I still am experiencing no pinging/active searching by escorts. Is the pinging dependent on crew rating, type of ship currently involved, ship speed, random ???
I'm lost on this one. I'm testing campaigns only.

[CB..]

TT
I was just thinking about that. I'll give it a shot in your mini tweaker. I'm like some others tho and have never pushed my boat to that depth level, I usually hang at around 160 - 200m. More later

CB
I have changed everything over to your current setup per you recent post. Works pretty much as advertised except I still am experiencing no pinging/active searching by escorts. Is the pinging dependent on crew rating, type of ship currently involved, ship speed, random ???
I'm lost on this one. I'm testing campaigns only.

i have my crewrating set quite low in the campaign.rnd

i have all the DD's at Crewrating=2

if you have yours higher then i reckon increasing slightly your

Noise factor in the hydrophones section of the sim.cfg should encourage them to use their sonar--

or lowering a little further the max rpm for the electric engines with the mini tweaker--

they only seem to switch to active sonar when they aren't getting any usefull hydrophone info--so it's i believe a matter of balancing the effectiveness of the hydrophones with the crewrating noise and or max rpm of your subs electrics to create the moment when they decide to switch to active--

they use their active pretty much as normal for me with the crewrating at 2

it's a matter of tinkering a little :up:

////////////////

TimeTraveller!!
:ping:
i wonder if there's a bouyancy entry for the u-boats--?

as they sink when major flooding is going on i was wondering if this was something that could be tweaked to give very very slight sinking when the boat is undamaged as this might have the boat sinking whilst submerged and at all stop---or force periodic depth changes to stabilise the boat--

i'm hoping of course this doesn't come into play whilst on the surface--and that's calculated slightly differently?

[Marhkimov]

CB..,

You are using crewrating=2???

I thought you were the one with DD's that were too dumb to look for you. How did you manage to make them "smarter" with a 2 rating?

But the only problem I see with using a 2 rating is that surface ships have horrible gun accuracy. You could probably flank speed right up to a battleship and sink it, crash dive and get away.

Hmm, I hope you don't ever see a battleship... ;)

[CB..]

CB..,

You are using crewrating=2???

I thought you were the one with DD's that were too dumb to look for you. How did you manage to make them "smarter" with a 2 rating?

But the only problem I see with using a 2 rating is that surface ships have horrible gun accuracy. You could probably flank speed right up to a battleship and sink it, crash dive and get away.

Hmm, I hope you don't ever see a battleship... ;)

well you'd just be forced to read the entire thread to understand that--
gun accuracy can of course be adjusted seperately--

[timetraveller]

TimeTraveller!!
:ping:
i wonder if there's a bouyancy entry for the u-boats--?

as they sink when major flooding is going on i was wondering if this was something that could be tweaked to give very very slight sinking when the boat is undamaged as this might have the boat sinking whilst submerged and at all stop---or force periodic depth changes to stabilise the boat--

i'm hoping of course this doesn't come into play whilst on the surface--and that's calculated slightly differently?

Very interesting. I wonder....

I'll have a look around. Could be I missed a value or 2....hehe

TT

[Marhkimov]

well you'd just be forced to read the entire thread to understand why i'm using crewrating=2

I was afraid of that... ;)

[CB..]

Very interesting. I wonder....

I'll have a look around. Could be I missed a value or 2....hehe

TT

cheers TT :rock: :up:

[Marhkimov]

Sorry Cb.., I think I'm blind. ;) :lol:

I will try your settings later.

[CB..]

Sorry Cb.., I think I'm blind. ;) :lol:

I will try your settings later.

no worries-- it's not compulsory y'know!!

[timetraveller]

Does anybody know what Sudor.dat is for??

Also what is this reference to DMY_this and DMY_that (like DMY_Spark_Sudura)??? I see a fair amount of reference to DMY...

Maybe Dummy??? (*maybe I'm a dummy!!)

TT

P.S.

Looks like all the particle effects aren't just in the particles.dat file.

Each unit has its own wake, even torpedoes, usually defined in the unit's DAT file. All this time I thought it was in the particles.dat file. That's just the start of it.

[timetraveller]

CB-

Can't find any buoyancy values.

The closest I came was in each unit's .VAL file. It has several references to a FloatingHeight value. Not sure what that is. A ShipFrontAngle value appears in the same context.

TT

[HEMISENT]

Thanks CB, just now able to get back into site.
Will try those changes you mentioned.

[Hartmann]

Does anybody know what Sudor.dat is for??

Also what is this reference to DMY_this and DMY_that (like DMY_Spark_Sudura)??? I see a fair amount of reference to DMY...

Maybe Dummy??? (*maybe I'm a dummy!!)

TT

P.S.

Looks like all the particle effects aren't just in the particles.dat file.

Each unit has its own wake, even torpedoes, usually defined in the unit's DAT file. All this time I thought it was in the particles.dat file. That's just the start of it.

I remember that the dev team put some romanian words in some files of the game

for example Pescarus=sea gull

perhaps there are more words .. :hmm:

i look for sudor in romanian and i found this :

Romanian to English dictionary

sudor = welder ... joins pieces of metal by welding them together

i don´t know if it has any sense... :88)

[CB..]

TT many thanks for the efforts--best i could find was reference to the centre of gravity in the sim.act (not bouyancy i know but )

SH3sim.act
0340d0 gravity center horizontal position [>0] 1=FRONT 0.5=MIDDLE 0=REAR

which i was toying with the thought that perhaps if the sub c-o-g was shifted slightly to the rear it might rest slightly nose down in the water when submerged--then setting the all stop speed to 0.2 knots it might- if the game works like this- slowly push the boat deeper--or it might just move thru the water at this funny angle without changing depth --depends on the dive planes really do they actually work or are they eye candy etc?
allso depends on wether i've understood the C-O-G modelling correctly--

what do you think---are those entrys just reference or can they be edited--?


HEMISENT

yes me too couldn't get into the site at all untill right now--
if you still have problems with the DD's not pinging let me know what year your in in the campaign --as they hydrophones do get better as the campaign goes on it maybe i need to adjust them to get round this --my test campaign is currently at October 1942--where abouts are you?

[CB..]

oops double post :oops:

[timetraveller]

Does anybody know what Sudor.dat is for??

Also what is this reference to DMY_this and DMY_that (like DMY_Spark_Sudura)??? I see a fair amount of reference to DMY...

Maybe Dummy??? (*maybe I'm a dummy!!)

TT

P.S.

Looks like all the particle effects aren't just in the particles.dat file.

Each unit has its own wake, even torpedoes, usually defined in the unit's DAT file. All this time I thought it was in the particles.dat file. That's just the start of it.

I remember that the dev team put some romanian words in some files of the game

for example Pescarus=sea gull

perhaps there are more words .. :hmm:

i look for sudor in romanian and i found this :

Romanian to English dictionary

sudor = welder ... joins pieces of metal by welding them together

i don´t know if it has any sense... :88)

Thanks Hartmann. That must be the welder at the dock I guess. Probably not something we need to be concerned about.

TT

[CB..]

Thanks Hartmann. That must be the welder at the dock I guess. Probably not something we need to be concerned about.

TT

ahh yes!!! wonder if DMY is one of the animation keys?

[timetraveller]

TT many thanks for the efforts--best i could find was reference to the centre of gravity in the sim.act (not bouyancy i know but )

SH3sim.act
0340d0 gravity center horizontal position [>0] 1=FRONT 0.5=MIDDLE 0=REAR

which i was toying with the thought that perhaps if the sub c-o-g was shifted slightly to the rear it might rest slightly nose down in the water when submerged--then setting the all stop speed to 0.2 knots it might- if the game works like this- slowly push the boat deeper--or it might just move thru the water at this funny angle without changing depth --depends on the dive planes really do they actually work or are they eye candy etc?
allso depends on wether i've understood the C-O-G modelling correctly--

what do you think---are those entrys just reference or can they be edited--?

It's definitely worth a try. I believe the devs originally wanted the dive planes to work, but maybe cut it short at the end to get the game out. Everything is in there dive plane -drag, effect, etc. Even the dive plane bubble in the control room.

Changing the FR center of gravity might work. Yes, I think you understand it. Two kinds of c-o-g in game, FR (front to rear), and gc_height (height above bottom of boat). Also, great idea on setting the All Stop to .2!

Try setting fr_ratio (SH3 Inspector can do it) to a smidgen under .5, maybe .45).

Good luck.

TT

[CB..]

It's definitely worth a try. I believe the devs originally wanted the dive planes to work, but maybe cut it short at the end to get the game out. Everything is in there dive plane -drag, effect, etc. Even the dive plane bubble in the control room.

Changing the FR center of gravity might work. Yes, I think you understand it. Two kinds of c-o-g in game, FR (front to rear), and gc_height (height above bottom of boat). Also, great idea on setting the All Stop to .2!

Try setting fr_ratio (SH3 Inspector can do it) to a smidgen under .5, maybe .45).

Good luck.

TT
Cheers TT-- it was see-ing the gc_height (gravity centre height) in the mini tweaker that prompted the idea--
i'll give it a try :up:

UP_DATE//////////////////


worth a try sadly the hold depth button (A) is semi pernament so it cancels it out---the boat did gradualy go deeper tho at around 1 knot all stop--but not the A key really does hold depth no matter what so it doesn't really work out gameplay wise--(had forgotton about the hold depth)

had some perculiar side effects as i saw it tho- the corvettes were running at decks awash --i had loaded an in game saved career tho to test it so that's probably what caused that--

worth a try as you never know untill you do as they say---this isn't the way tho-- :nope:

[HEMISENT]

CB
Thanks for reply. Bad snowstorm here sat connection in and out.
Anyway my test campaign mission was sept 1943. Moot point now as a single DD was hounding me for 6 hours game time. With 1000m min distance stealth meter would stay completely green allowing me to attempt escape then when DD was approx 1000m distance the meter would go instantly red, DD would come charging back to my area inside the safe 1000m zone he lost me and would meander around searching w/o using active sonar(SR, any speed/any depth made no difference he could not detect me). I would attempt to get away but as soon as he got to the magic 1000m line he would start all over. This went on for 6 hours. I finally got fed up and took the boat too deep in an attempt to evade.
Starting again same time frame but this time I'll reset the crew ratings and noise as you recommended.

[P_Funk]

Can I ask for a summary of the major developments in this thread. I hope its not too lazy of me to not want to read all 25 pages :doh:

[CB..]

Can I ask for a summary of the major developments in this thread. I hope its not too lazy of me to not want to read all 25 pages :doh:

yup if your suffering from uber DD's --stop playing the single missions and start playing the campaign--that's is really about it---if your suffering from useless DD's do this


just start with a stock AI_sensors.dat

and make two alterations--

one-
REDUCE all the hydrophones max distances by 4000 metres--so if it's 6500 as stock reduce it to 2500 metres--do this for all the hydrophones--

two-
INCREASE the minimum distances for all the hydrophones to 1000 metres--

three-
use these sim.cfg entrys

[Mech]
Waves amplitude=0.4 ;[0,1]
Waves attenuation=0.02 ;>=0

[AI Cannons]
Max error angle=20 ;[deg]
Max fire range=5000 ;[m]
Max fire wait=22 ;[s]

[AI AA guns]
Max error angle=5 ;[deg]
Max fire range=1000 ;[m]
Max fire wait=7 ;[s]

[AI detection]
Lost contact time=6 ;[min]

[Visual]
Detection time=0.5 ;[s] min detection time.
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1) at (sensitivity * max range) we have a double detection time.
Fog factor=0.3 ;[>=0]
Light factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=400 ;[m2]
Enemy speed factor=15 ;[kt]

[Radar]
Detection time=1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=3.0 ;[m2]

[Hydrophone]
range factor=1 ;[>=0]
fog factor=0 ;[>=0]
light factor=0 ;[>=0]
waves factor=0.2 ;[>=0]
speed factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
enemy speed=0 ;[>=0]
aspect=0 ;[>=0]
noise factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
sensor height factor=0 ;[>=0]
already tracking modifier=20 ;[detection probability modifier]
decay time=150 ;[>0] already tracking bonus decay, in seconds
uses crew efficiency=true ;[true or false]

[Sonar]
Detection time=5 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Waves factor=0.50 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=10 ;[kt]
Enemy surface factor=200 ;[m2]
Lose time=2



four--
reduce the maximum revs for the electric engines using the mini tweaker by 30 to 50 revs per minutes--i reduced mine to 250 rpm max--

and that's it--

[CB..]

CB
Thanks for reply. Bad snowstorm here sat connection in and out.
Anyway my test campaign mission was sept 1943. Moot point now as a single DD was hounding me for 6 hours game time. With 1000m min distance stealth meter would stay completely green allowing me to attempt escape then when DD was approx 1000m distance the meter would go instantly red, DD would come charging back to my area inside the safe 1000m zone he lost me and would meander around searching w/o using active sonar(SR, any speed/any depth made no difference he could not detect me). I would attempt to get away but as soon as he got to the magic 1000m line he would start all over. This went on for 6 hours. I finally got fed up and took the boat too deep in an attempt to evade.
Starting again same time frame but this time I'll reset the crew ratings and noise as you recommended.

that sounds familiar--- :yep: had the same scenario last patrol--- late 1942 but the lone hunter killer DD gave up after around half an hour--

my next patrol should be in 1943 so i will be keeping an eye out for any problems--

this is another reason why testing in single missions is a complete waste of time-- :yep:

[timetraveller]

It's definitely worth a try. I believe the devs originally wanted the dive planes to work, but maybe cut it short at the end to get the game out. Everything is in there dive plane -drag, effect, etc. Even the dive plane bubble in the control room.

Changing the FR center of gravity might work. Yes, I think you understand it. Two kinds of c-o-g in game, FR (front to rear), and gc_height (height above bottom of boat). Also, great idea on setting the All Stop to .2!

Try setting fr_ratio (SH3 Inspector can do it) to a smidgen under .5, maybe .45).

Good luck.

TT
Cheers TT-- it was see-ing the gc_height (gravity centre height) in the mini tweaker that prompted the idea--
i'll give it a try :up:

UP_DATE//////////////////


worth a try sadly the hold depth button (A) is semi pernament so it cancels it out---the boat did gradualy go deeper tho at around 1 knot all stop--but not the A key really does hold depth no matter what so it doesn't really work out gameplay wise--(had forgotton about the hold depth)

had some perculiar side effects as i saw it tho- the corvettes were running at decks awash --i had loaded an in game saved career tho to test it so that's probably what caused that--

worth a try as you never know untill you do as they say---this isn't the way tho-- :nope:

Nice work, CB. Are you saying the hold depth button (A), once pressed stays forever? Wow, that's not good. We need an "unhold depth" button.

TT

[CB..]

Nice work, CB. Are you saying the hold depth button (A), once pressed stays forever? Wow, that's not good. We need an "unhold depth" button.

TT

Cheers TT --yup once pressed the hold depth command overides any other factors--(i suppose it makes sense- it does exactly what it says on the tin etc etc) UNTILL you select a new depth that is--

:cry:

[timetraveller]

Nice work, CB. Are you saying the hold depth button (A), once pressed stays forever? Wow, that's not good. We need an "unhold depth" button.

TT

Cheers TT --yup once pressed the hold depth command overides any other factors--(i suppose it makes sense- it does exactly what it says on the tin etc etc) UNTILL you select a new depth that is--

:cry:

Ahhh, I see. Good, at least it cancels out when selecting a new depth. I was afraid it was a game bug. Hopefully one day we'll find a good way to do a little "downward drift".

TT

[CB..]

hopefully TT that would be a nice touch--- :up:

tell you what tho i decided to keep the all stop rpm setting in the subs cfg


but i reduced it to

AllStop=0.01

this keeps the props turning over very slowly with minimal forward motion---it just feels better than sitting completely still with no propulsion at all--
it's a tricky one to lose depth tho--setting the dive plane zero angles to a slight allmost imperceptible dive (any more and the sub would keep diving when surfaced etc?) might be one way?

[timetraveller]

hopefully TT that would be a nice touch--- :up:

tell you what tho i decided to keep the all stop rpm setting in the subs cfg


but i reduced it to

AllStop=0.01

this keeps the props turning over very slowly with minimal forward motion---it just feels better than sitting completely still with no propulsion at all--
it's a tricky one to lose depth tho--setting the dive plane zero angles to a slight allmost imperceptible dive (any more and the sub would keep diving when surfaced etc?) might be one way?

Yeah, I think the AllStop=0.01 is generally a good plan (just happened to think - what happens if we rest on the bottom?). And yes, if we could find a way to tweak those dive planes a little off level, we might have some downward drift.

Gotta run off for awhile. I shall return....

TT

[CCIP]

Just wondering, would AllStop=0.01 apply to both engines or just electrics?

Anyway, I guess that's fine. If we wanted to shut the engines, we could just get the crew out of the compartment.

Sounds like a very good idea, anyway. Much more realistic than a hoverboat :up:

[CB..]

Just wondering, would AllStop=0.01 apply to both engines or just electrics?

Anyway, I guess that's fine. If we wanted to shut the engines, we could just get the crew out of the compartment.

Sounds like a very good idea, anyway. Much more realistic than a hoverboat :up:

:up: yes it affects both engines ---at allstop=0.01 the actual forward speed is almost nil---it would take you half an hour to move one boats length so it's not a huge problem either way--

TT :up:
on the resting on the sea bed thing is the crash speed significant for adjusting the ability to "soft land" on the sea bed without taking any damage? gotta crank that up a bit if thats' what it does? what do you think?

[timetraveller]

TT :up:
on the resting on the sea bed thing is the crash speed significant for adjusting the ability to "soft land" on the sea bed without taking any damage? gotta crank that up a bit if thats' what it does? what do you think?

Yes, that's the way I take it to be. I've never played with it though. I always assumed if you exceeded CrashSpeed when you collided with an object, you were dead.

TT

[caspofungin]

from the .act file, it seems crash speed is how quickly damage accumulates when you're below crush depth.

anyway...
any idea why sensors turn uber when they're deleted from the sim.cfg file, yet no values you input into sim.cfg can end up having the same effect?

[caspofungin]

from the .act file, it seems crash speed is how quickly damage accumulates when you're below crush depth.

anyway...
any idea why sensors turn uber when they're deleted from the sim.cfg file, yet no values you input into sim.cfg can end up having the same effect?

[timetraveller]

from the .act file, it seems crash speed is how quickly damage accumulates when you're below crush depth.

anyway...
any idea why sensors turn uber when they're deleted from the sim.cfg file, yet no values you input into sim.cfg can end up having the same effect?

Ah, nice pickup on the crash speed, caspofungin. :up:

Don't know about the uber sensors. Interesting. It would be interesting to check some of those values in the .sim files.

TT

[Der Teddy Bar]

from the .act file, it seems crash speed is how quickly damage accumulates when you're below crush depth.
Correct, it also is associated with "Crash Depth=" in the zones.cfg.

[CB..]

from the .act file, it seems crash speed is how quickly damage accumulates when you're below crush depth.

anyway...
any idea why sensors turn uber when they're deleted from the sim.cfg file, yet no values you input into sim.cfg can end up having the same effect?
thats was to be my next question !! :up:

my theory on why the sensor goes uber when the appropiate section is removed from the sim.cfg is that it then defaults to some setting some where--kinda the reverse of setting the sensitivity to zero in the AI_sensors.dat to reference the sensitivity entry in the sim.cfg

my guess is that the default setting is not the setting stored in the AI_sensors.dat--

tell you what tho we did notice that if you edited the A_sensors.dat and left the back up copy of the file in the folder the game didn't read the altered entrys==may be that ther's some sort of connection--?

[CB..]

HEMISENT--

bit of an up-date on the sensor set up--

i'm in feb 1943--

the DD's are using their active sonar regulary as normal i'm getting pinged at the normal rate ---am attacking a convoy- now the DD's radar has slipped up a notch,(from the 42 sensor ranges etc) it's proving hugely entertaining (and a little frustrating aswell lol) getting close enough to the convoy to attack---an evarts and a fletcher are doing a damn good job of keeping me just outside torpedo range--i daren't surface because of the radar-- but they're not doing anything more than keeping me deep at this range--coming over to investigate the surface contact (if i do surface to try to get in closer -or risk a high submerged speed etc) DC-ing the area + pinging as they search--staying for around 20 minutes- then returning to the convoy to do their job--got to hand it to them it's working very effectively lol!

only two choices really--surface and hope to get closer before they use their main guns--(it's dark so it's possible) then hope to lose them long enough to get back up to scope depth and attack--

or abandon the attack retreat and repostion for another attempt--

this seems about right and an increase in difficulty level from late 1942--

going to be tough getting tonnage--theyre not getting many damaging hits with their DC attacks but never the less their doing their job most effectively-

have you had any luck with your edits? every thing seems spot on here--

[HEMISENT]

Hi CB, Thanks for the update. sad to say not much difference.
I just did a fresh install using RUB1.45*HT mods then inserted all your updates. I went back to sept 1943 campaign(same as before) ran across a convoy escorted by 5 DD's. All 5 hounded me for about 45 minutes pinging me only two or three times. 4 DD's left leaving one behind to keep me under-very tenacious. Same basic problem as before within the 1000m radius meter is green, DD goes outside the radius, meter goes red, DD gets a fix and comes back to me (meter is green)and drops a few. This went on for 3 hours very repetitive/boring.
Then I notice another DD approaching long distance. Both ships stopped at 1000m dead still (no pinging just sitting) I brought my boat to all stop and let her slowly sink(meter is red) after a half hour of this nonsense I attempted to escape at 1 kt/150m/SR.
I was able to escape to 3500m both (DD's still sitting). just to see what happens i brought boat to 100m, disabled SR, speed 3kts. That they heard
Both ships fired up and headed directly for me at high speed. at about 1500m one ship held back slowly zig zagging and the other proceeded to DC the crap out of me-he won.
Once the second DD showed up to lend a hand things got interesting again.

Observation:
When two or more DD's are involved in a hunt they work well together, some hanging back listening, others making DC runs. Great game play/great immersion
When only one DD is involved its very repetitive/round robin back and forth to the 1000m line, get a fix, attack, back to the line etc, etc,
I have tried every sort of evasion I can think of for hours but no way to escape but also no way for him to get accurate fix.
I have no clue how to solve this-Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[CB..]

Observation:
When two or more DD's are involved in a hunt they work well together, some hanging back listening, others making DC runs. Great game play/great immersion
When only one DD is involved its very repetitive/round robin back and forth to the 1000m line, get a fix, attack, back to the line etc, etc,
I have tried every sort of evasion I can think of for hours but no way to escape but also no way for him to get accurate fix.
I have no clue how to solve this-Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

thanks for the feed-back :up:

this mod is designed to exploit the co-operation between the escorts to the full--forcing them to rely on each other to find and attack the contacts--glad this aspect is working well for you--and you can see the benifits-- :up:
i've not had the problems your having with lone DD's- i don't know why this is happenning-my only thought is that there's something in RUB that tips the balance on the sensors perhaps the high lost contact time i'm told RUB uses?
this set up uses a far shorter lose contact time to balance out the slightly ubered hydrophones--

[AI detection]
Lost contact time=6 ;[min]

this creates escape windows against the DD's and allows them to search find ,lose, re find- contacts in a fairly dynamic fashion--and gives you the ability to shake them--

i will keep an eye out for this problem and others as i play thru the career--(the one you describe would be fairly hard to miss it has to be said! )
i don't have RUB or any other large scale game modifications installed so can't take those things into consideration--

check you have used all the entrys from the sim.cfg i gave-- if you are using all the entrys then it's probably fair to say this mod is incompatible with RUB as it stands--and you'll have to weigh the pro's and cons

[HEMISENT]

CB
How exactly does "lost contact time=" work? what would happen if it were set lower or higher?

[CCIP]

CB
How exactly does "lost contact time=" work? what would happen if it were set lower or higher?

The destroyers would circle in the same area that they last had contact with you for that length of time.

Setting it higher than 45 minutes is impractical, because by that time you're usually far enough from them to surface safely :hmm:

[CB..]

CB
How exactly does "lost contact time=" work? what would happen if it were set lower or higher?

Yup as CIIP said :up:

it means that once they have lost contact with you (which happens constantly with this mod) they start to leave the area and either return to their convoy escort position or if a lone DD return to following it's original way points/route--i prefer this system as it allows the DD's to do their job taking into consideration that if this were in fact real--they would be aware that there was more than one u-boat in the sea- so might be less inclined to stay away from their convoys for longer than neccessary --they'll soon be back if you get too close again--

this gives you the opportunity to evade---especailly if can get into their natural blindspot directly behind them---once they have reached 4-6 thousand metres from you -you are out side their detection range -and you can escape fully--that's pretty much how the mod is set up---

[HEMISENT]

Thanks guys, just a bit more info to try and work this out. So far I really like the way everything works with two or more DD's. Its the single ship hunting me thats throwing me for a loop.

[Reece]

Hi, having problems with net of late due to a nearby farms electric fence producing quite an audible click over the line, the modem doesn't like it, have reported the problem & they are calling in to test the lines, in the meantime I just have to hope that even this this reply gets through!! :cry:
It's been about a week & a half since I could view this thread, has there been any new developements or mods created yet? :D
Many thanks.

[HEMISENT]

CB.
I disabled all mods down to vanilla + patch.
Then reinstalled your modified sim.cfg, made sure all hydrophones remained to your recommended settings as posted, sub revs to 250(on the VIIC that Im currently using). Fired up a fresh campaign mission last night and ran into a lone DD who behaved exactly as the previous single hunters did. Altho I did notice on his return from the 1000m line his drops are now more random and sporadic. He may drop close or he may make a hi speed pass and drop 500m away as he has no lock-still no pinging tho. May be too soon to tell but appears non-RUB play is a bit different than with. This current situation is still ongoing as Im looking for a way to evade without doing something bizarre. As it stands I have no hope of evading and he has no hope of hitting me unless he goes active which is not happening

The good news is that pin point drops are a thing of the past

[CB..]

CB.
I disabled all mods down to vanilla + patch.
Then reinstalled your modified sim.cfg, made sure all hydrophones remained to your recommended settings as posted, sub revs to 250(on the VIIC that Im currently using). Fired up a fresh campaign mission last night and ran into a lone DD who behaved exactly as the previous single hunters did. Altho I did notice on his return from the 1000m line his drops are now more random and sporadic. He may drop close or he may make a hi speed pass and drop 500m away as he has no lock-still no pinging tho. May be too soon to tell but appears non-RUB play is a bit different than with. This current situation is still ongoing as Im looking for a way to evade without doing something bizarre. As it stands I have no hope of evading and he has no hope of hitting me unless he goes active which is not happening

The good news is that pin point drops are a thing of the past

oh well you can but try!--

[Redwine]

I still sticky on DDs radar detection...... :hmm:

Early DDs seems to be not ca[able to detect my periscope, even my snorkel.

They do it very near, then i am not sure if the detection was by radar or visually.

This behavior happens even with the original files.

May be it is historical correct, but make very happy the "happy times".

I decide to let it.

Now i am on planes radar detection, some ones seems to have not radar at all.

If i increase too much their capabilities, there are some missions with a very high quantity of planes activity, then the air attack become a night mare, and planes as Liberators and Catalinas become so deadly.

I was killed many times by them.

May be real, that is not real is the very high airplane activity into many third party missions, some times they seems to be ants in the sky .....

I decide to reduce their capabilities, so, if there are many of them, attacks number and probabilities will be reduced.

Now i am sticky looking for rise up the radar warning sensor of my sub, to positioning it at top of the snorkel or periscope, to have radar warning when sail at those depths.

But no way, i cant found how to do it yet.

I have another problem...... may be some one can help :


[AI Cannons]
Max error angle=3 ;[deg]

I set Max eror angle for AI cannons to high values, ie : 10, 15, 20, 25......, it make many shoots fails.

If you take the Bisckmark mission, you will see the two british battleships seems to be not afected by this value.

Even rising this error to 20 or 25, british battleships hits the Bisckmark with a good precision.

But this value affect the Bisckmark...... he dont hit any thing. :hmm:

May be there is another line affecting the AI cannon precision ?

Here my actual files if some body want to try them.....

http://rapidshare.de/files/9097023/DD_s_Detection_12_Stage.zip.html

The main characteristic, is you are now good protected by low speed and low speed plus silent running.
Atctive and pasive sonar beams was reduced, radar capabilities was increased.

You must to manage well you attack pattern.

Loss contact time by default at 15 min, it makes your life a little bit hard. You can reduce it to have interesting CB behaviour.

:up:

[CB..]

aye :yep: for the sake of folks have-ing something to try at the end of this long process--here's the files set up i've settled on---ai_sensors.dat and the sim.cfg only-- please read the thread for other touches you may or may not want to include-


http://www.ebort.com/files/SH3destest.zip

i have not experienced any problems with this set up---tho it has to be said others have had occasional difficultys with lone hunter killer DD's--

but it's --either way-- something else for folks to try

[Jungman]

I am glad to see you found a solution to the DD "detection" problem. :up:

Hey, I think its time to fire up the old game and check it out!

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Many thanks for all your hard work gentlemen. :up: :up: :up:

[thecaptain]

Thanks for all your efforts!! My biggest gripe was that destroyers, in general, really behaved pretty dumb even when you were practically in their face. It was almost a relief when one of the uber DDs came along and gave you a run for your money. Hopefully, this mod will make the experience a lot more uniform. Again, thanks for all the time and work you've put into this.

The Captain

[caspofungin]

@hemisent

(and others having issues w/ single destroyers)

consider implementing the min surface for sonars in ai_sensors -- a value of 60-80 seems to work best. allows you to evade active pinging by turning directly into or away from the escort, as was practiced irl. in combination w/ silent running, allows you to potentially get some distance and eventually break free.

[HEMISENT]

@hemisent

(and others having issues w/ single destroyers)

consider implementing the min surface for sonars in ai_sensors -- a value of 60-80 seems to work best. allows you to evade active pinging by turning directly into or away from the escort, as was practiced irl. in combination w/ silent running, allows you to potentially get some distance and eventually break free.

caspofungin
Thank you. At this point I've run almost entirely out of ideas. I can get the game to run nicely using CB's settings without RUB. But as soon as I enable RUB I go back to the same problem described earlier. For the last few days I've been testing using RUB only and integrating CB's settings one line at a time but still nowhere near acceptable. Right now I'm looking for a nice balance. What I have so far is a single DD thats almost as deaf as my SO or a DD that is too tenacious

One thing I'm noticing is the pinpoint drops are history.

I wonder how Gouldjg is doing with his tests?-haven't heard from him in a while.

[Marhkimov]

Does anyone have a theory about why things are different when you use RUb?

[Hartmann]

Its difficult to know what is different.

Rub has a lot of mods, some are eye candy but others modify the game rules. :roll:

i think that in the readme there are a list of included mods.


Great work :up:

[Reece]

Will definitely try these out, Many Thanks. :up: :D

[thecaptain]

Had high hopes for this one. I set sail and purposely steered for the area around Gibralter. I was looking for trouble and could be assured I'd find it there. Sure enough, it didn't take long for one destroyer to emerge out of the darkness and see me. I took to the depths and waited to see what would happen next. It wasn't long before he called in several of his friends. One after another, more destroyers answered the call. Unfortunately, that was as exciting as it ever got. I set the engines for flank just to draw their attention and not once did any of them go to active sonar - not a single ping. A couple just continued to make sweeps and depth charge runs behind me, but never came close. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the hard work that went into this test mod, but it's going to need much more. I replaced the old files and I found that the destroyers were much more aggressive. Go flank and they've got ya.

The Captain

[Marhkimov]

Had high hopes for this one. I set sail and purposely steered for the area around Gibralter. I was looking for trouble and could be assured I'd find it there. Sure enough, it didn't take long for one destroyer to emerge out of the darkness and see me. I took to the depths and waited to see what would happen next. It wasn't long before he called in several of his friends. One after another, more destroyers answered the call. Unfortunately, that was as exciting as it ever got. I set the engines for flank just to draw their attention and not once did any of them go to active sonar - not a single ping. A couple just continued to make sweeps and depth charge runs behind me, but never came close. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the hard work that went into this test mod, but it's going to need much more. I replaced the old files and I found that the destroyers were much more aggressive. Go flank and they've got ya.

The Captain

Myself, I haven't tried the settings yet, but if I were you, I wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet. Depending on the year, DD type, and other variables, you may not have gotten an accurate depiction of the settings.

My suggestion is to try it in '44 or '45 and see if the DD's are anymore challenging. My guess is that you will DIE plenty of horrible deaths...

But then again, that's what you wanted, right? :rotfl:

[thecaptain]

Yeah, you got me there. Admittedly, it's only late 1941. I was still surprised that none of them went to active sonar, though. My engines were doing some hefty RPMs. Granted, a lot more testing is necessary, so please foregive me for jumping the gun. I don't really have a death wish. I guess I just like the occasional good scare. :o

[Marhkimov]

Nevertheless, I like the results that you got.


Being that it was 1941, I wouldn't expect DDs to ante up much resistance, if any. In other words, they are horrible, and that's the way it should be.

And you have to admit, the DDs at least attempted to destroy you. They failed, but that's besides the point. It's probably more important that they found you... And it is just as important that they lost you as well... It goes to say that they are no longer uber DDs.

IMHO I would have to say yipee!!! :up:


Now I am wondering how the later years play out...

[caspofungin]

@hemisent

i've got my own personal tweaks, and am using them in campaign. if you want to give them a try, i'll happily send you the ai_sensors and sim.cfg file.

only just started campaign w/ RUB 1.45, and haven't run into any convoys just yet (1st time ever since got the game -- a whole 6 week patrol w/out a convoy) but ran into a couple of single destoyers. tried to set up for a shot at 1 but he saw my scope just before i fired and came charging at me, got pummeled w/ dc's for a while but managed to escape but keeping the sharp end pointed at him, so to speak. then ran into a 2 ship convoy in fog (1 c2, 1 large merchant), torped 'em both but a patrolling destroyer came by, forced me under again.

so far, things going ok (1942 start) -- either been picked up on radar on surface or had my scope visually spotted (left it out too long over 1 m). re hydrophones -- picked up at approx 4000m if running at full/flank, >1000m at 1/3 or all slow, undetectable at silent. w/ asdic -- narrow beam geometry allows you to dive under the asdic and take advantage of the dead zone w/out using a forced min range, while the "surface" implementation allows you to take advantage of aspect.

obviously, there's still a lot of testing to be done -- mainly w/ multiple escorts in a convoy attack or w/ h/k groups. also, i have some ideas about implementing late war sonars (q attachment and type 147 "sword" complementing the standard searchlight asdics) but haven't plugged them in just yet. trying to go for good gameplay, but one in which the dd's have the same disadvantages initially that they did irl, and where rl tactics can get you out of a bind (and ignoring those pros/cons can get you into trouble). w/in the limitations of the game engine, of course -- it would be a lot easier if escorts didn't get range and depth info from hydrophones, for example, but that's a separate topic.

anyway, gameplay is the 1st priority. like i said, if you're interested, pm me, and i'll send you the files tomorrow. just bear in mind that things are still in the early testing phase.

[Jungman]

@caspofungin

Interesting. You can send me what you got. I think between what all you have found together, a nice middle can be found?

There is a way to change teh hydrophones to be more sensitive without going for infinite off/on toggle state.

You then can increase the range/sensitivity of the active sonar in the AI_Sensors.dat file, this goes for the Hydrophones also (I think).

These setting I am speaking of are not in the sim.cfg, but the actual data in the AI_Sensors.dat file. It is not in anice format, and TT tool will not alter them; must be done by hand.

Maybe that way a good balance can be achieved.

I got bored with Civilization 4 already, so I am back to playing SH3. The DD seem to act as if they have two states, normal and alert; then their 'detection' values jump up to look for you. There seems to be a set of two numbers after the sensitivity entry in AI_Sensors.dat. Alot of testing for sure.

BTY Where is this RPM setting being changed at?

RuB mosting had the 200m range nerf, and the total ANGLE +-bow of the DD active sonar nerf also. Nothing else IIRC. It does have a longer 'hold time' in Sim.cfg as CB mentioned.

[timetraveller]

@caspofungin

Interesting. You can send me what you got. I think between what all you have found together, a nice middle can be found?

There is a way to change the hydrophones to be more sensitive without going for infinite off/on toggle state.

You then can increase the range/sensitivity of the active sonar in the AI_Sensors.dat file, this goes for the Hydrophones also (I think).

These setting I am speaking of are not in the sim.cfg, but the actual data in the AI_Sensors.dat file. It is not in anice format, and TT tool will not alter them; must be done by hand.

Maybe that way a good balance can be achieved.

I got bored with Civilization 4 already, so I am back to playing SH3. The DD seem to act as if they have two states, normal and alert; then their 'detection' values jump up to look for you. There seems to be a set of two numbers after the sensitivity entry in AI_Sensors.dat. Alot of testing for sure.

Jungman,

If you discover the details on the double sensitivity values, maybe I can make a correct tweak file for them.

TT

[Jungman]

Sure, it seems to follow almost a logical progression, except on passive sonar unit does not fit. To test, I am gong to print this out for all 7 passive and active units to finially get down to its structure.

i am sure you have looked at this data, but there is a jumbled mess of numbers not so easily understood. There is one pattern I found (except the one passive sonar QGAP is negative sensitivity range is 8500m) and may account for why those particular DD with that passive sonar equipment for that mid? late? year are deaf and dumb. It maybe a small bug causing such a headache.

[timetraveller]

Thanks, Jungman. I'm looking forward to your printout.

TT

[HEMISENT]

caspofungin
Thanks, I would greatly appreciate checking out your settings. If you could either post them or PM me. I finally made a bit of progress last night using a combination of RUB 1.45 only + adding certain lines from CB's sim.cfg. I'm testing late 1942 campaign mission.
For the first time I have a tenacious single DD which is behaving closer to what I think is acceptable. The stealth meter shows a change in detectability as I increase speed, change depth, disable/enable SR. Also the DD responds a bit differently depending on how much he is detecting me.
This may all be for nothing as it was one single encounter that I have played out/saved a couple dozen times. Going off to try it again. more later.

Jungman,
Welcome back.

[CCIP]

It's a shame I couldn't follow this thread guys - would be great if there was a summary on the first page or something. I'm really curious how this is going; I agree that there is an issue with DD's, especially in terms of the general detection and hydrophone performance.

What's the status now? Are we any closer to a solution? :88)

[CB..]

i think this is the problem on one level with this whole concept--every-one has different expectations of what sort of behaviuor they want the DD's to exhibit---they all want to DD's to do what they want them to do, when they want them to do it--for the length of time they want them to do it-and they want them to do it with-out getting them selves killed--now i ask you just how often in real life did Destroyers do exactly what the sub commander when he wanted them to do it and for the exact length of tine he desired them to do it for--this is the basic contradiction in realism inherent in any game of this nature--

even if this celubriuos objective is actually achieved i can promise you that it will be as boring as all hell--

far better to have some decent gameplay and be damned to the details--

let the DD's do their job --if they are doing their job and your tonnage results go down as a consequence then the problem has been solved


there-fore i have to say without any doubt that for me this problem is solved ---

[Marhkimov]

I agree with CB's thought... Therefore I vowe to use his settings, whether I like them or not.

After all, did those real u-boat kaleuns have a choice? :D

[CCIP]

A-ha, I knew I missed some important post.

Thanks CB - I'll definitely give these a look :)

Installed the settings and we'll see what the result is!

[CB..]

ok thanks guys--no-body has to use my files/mod (stating the obvious of course!)
i came to this thread in the same boat as everybody else--SH3 was an over elaborate screen saver for me--very nice to look at but the DD's were just eye candy completely useless--it would be impossible to exceragerate just quite how useless they were--and there was literally no gameplay what so ever--

all i wanted was for them to do their job---protecting the convoys

so i could get on with doing mine (virtually of course) ie sinking merchants--i try to sink em-- DD's try to stop me--that's the gameplay at the end of the day--

with some luck and a lot of help i came up with summat that persuaded the DD's that doing their job was worth the effort--hence gameplay--hence my problem solved-- woohoo etc

no other mod seemed forth coming even tho i waited --the thread had died---so i made it into a downloadable mod--
no intention to compete with any one else just one thing along with Red's files for folks to at least have a go with--

as i say i can't find anything wrong with it---gameplay for me is great and over time other tweaks will suggest them selves so i'll alter it as and when some small refinement seems to be a good idea--but the jist of it is-- job done--

my current career is at feb 1943 and my last patrol resulted in two ships sunk after a long convoy attack and every torpedo expended from a type 9 c- (four seperate attacks --one in the evening--one at dusk -- one in the middle of the night- - and the final attempt in the morning--each time breaking off surfacing reloading recharging and repositioning again)

total was 24,000 tons

the DD's put up a good show --and I was only able to sink the ships after as BDU calls it "getting aggressive"-- now i know what they meant at last lol--
and this sort of behaviour from the DD's has proven consistent right thru many many previous patrols--
whew reliable game-play at last--

[caspofungin]

i'm totally w/ you, cb -- it's all about gameplay. for me, gameplay = challenge and variability. i want the escorts to punish me for the smallest mistake -- but i also want to be able to use the limitations of their sensors against them.

like you, i think i may have reached a playable set of parameters myself -- but if other people want to take a look at my settings, they're more than welcome to. if they figure something's wrong, then they've done me a favour and saved me some time. one of the mantras of my job -- AIR assess, intervene, reassess.

trust me, i'm not stealing anyone's thunder or anything like that. i feel we're all on the same team, getting to grips w/ the same problem.

i think we're taking slightly different approaches to the same problem. different approaches will highlight different problems, which is why i think the more people involved in testing/tweaking, the better. eventually everyones different approaches -- yours, mine, redwines, everyone else's on this thread -- will complement each other and we'll have a basis for change that will make everyone's game that much better.

i don't have access to my pc right now, but will put my files up on rapidshare w/in 24 hrs.

[HEMISENT]

CB I totally agree with you. Your settings work like a champ. The gameplay and DD behaviour using what you've come up with are pretty much the ticket as far as i'm concerned. My whole point in continued testing is to try to get the same similiar behaviour when RUB is enabled.

Right now I think I'm getting a bit closer.

[Gammel]

i just had an interesting and challanging battle against a lonel DD with CB´s mod installed.

With luck and skillfull seamanship ;-)
i managed to escape the hunter after 2 hours.
(he suddenly left the scene, guess he ran out of dc´s.)
Date was oct. 1940.
He gave me a good fight and i was impressed how he did the attack runs.
He was mostly using only 2 DC`s for every run, stayed passive but used asdic for one single time.
Never saw such a behavior in the game until now.
The mod feels good, i´ll stay with it and do more testing...

Edit
I´ve used a 1.4 based Setup for that test, no RUB here.

[CCIP]

CB I totally agree with you. Your settings work like a champ. The gameplay and DD behaviour using what you've come up with are pretty much the ticket as far as i'm concerned. My whole point in continued testing is to try to get the same similiar behaviour when RUB is enabled.

Right now I think I'm getting a bit closer.

I'm technically using the RUb settings, so we'll see what I come up with.

Have you compared other config files with RUb's? There may be something in those that messes things up.

[drEaPer]

Had high hopes for this one. I set sail and purposely steered for the area around Gibralter. I was looking for trouble and could be assured I'd find it there. Sure enough, it didn't take long for one destroyer to emerge out of the darkness and see me. I took to the depths and waited to see what would happen next. It wasn't long before he called in several of his friends. One after another, more destroyers answered the call. Unfortunately, that was as exciting as it ever got. I set the engines for flank just to draw their attention and not once did any of them go to active sonar - not a single ping. A couple just continued to make sweeps and depth charge runs behind me, but never came close. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the hard work that went into this test mod, but it's going to need much more. I replaced the old files and I found that the destroyers were much more aggressive. Go flank and they've got ya.

The Captain

Myself, I haven't tried the settings yet, but if I were you, I wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet. Depending on the year, DD type, and other variables, you may not have gotten an accurate depiction of the settings.

My suggestion is to try it in '44 or '45 and see if the DD's are anymore challenging. My guess is that you will DIE plenty of horrible deaths...

But then again, that's what you wanted, right? :rotfl:


This post made me wonder: I am in June 1940, playing unmodded SH3, and the destroyers ping alot. Just 15 min ago, I was entering the strait of gibraltar from the east and a destroyer was heading right for me. I crash dived, changed course, went to silent running and 2 min later:ping.....ping.....ping.....ping......ping, ping, ping, ping
some more minutes later: DC directly on my head.

So I have nasty DDs with active in 1940 already.

[Jungman]

Indeed, everyone has a different take. What is very interesting is with that change in the Sim.cfg, the Hydrophones act as super hydrophones, as if they can see you underwater. That is definitley one way (the only so far I have seen) to get their attention to come over and attack you agressively.

After several hours of playing, I have found the sensitivity settings to change quite easily for the 7 Active Sonars for the DD if you care to play with them, and if TT wants to place them into his tool.

The passive sonar (hydrophones) I have studied the format and am getting closer to solving it. For what it is worth.

Here is the basic data on the Active sonar. It is not all inclusive, just the highlights.

The sensitivity setting number follows just the same format as the other values in the file.

Sensitivity_XXXX a blank space then the hex value in IEEE format.

This is for the Active Sonars only. Bow angle +- 90 degrees left right in the horizontal plane.

The Elevation is the verticle angle to mimick the narrow search light or the late war Sword type sonars. 90 is 'horizontal' . Thus 90-100 would be sea level down 10 degree dip into water (if it even works in game).

Active...range...Elevation...Sensitivity...hex value

123A ...1200m....90-100...0.039999....0A D7 23 30

128A ...1500m....90-100...0.050000....CD CC 4C 3D

144A....2000m....90-130...0.050000....CD CC 4C 3D

147A....2200m....90-155...0.070000....29 5C 8F 3D

QCeA...1300m....90-100...0.050000....CD CC 4C 3D

QClA....1700m....90-100....0.050000...CD CC 4C 3D

QGAA...2000m....90-100...0.059999....8F C2 75 3D


This info is for people who wish to try to tweak stuff some more.

It is a oddity the later war passive sonar used in mission U-505 is the QClP. The numbers maybe mixed up and causes the later war active or passive sonar not to reference anything (making it Uber).

The "1" and the "l" look the exact same in the font in the code, but it gets referenced different in the DD SNS file and the hex code. Maybe that was a small buglet. I am not sure. the "1" instead of being a '11' in hex is a "l" which is 6A in hex.. This would give the late war Everats and Buckley (maybe more) super sonar effect. Maybe.


The hydrophone format indeed is strange, but I can diagram it, and make one behave like the others. I still have not been able to make it super high sensitivity as I want, but getting closer to it..

I only wish to be able to let people change the values to their own playing style. Without that discovery of the Sim.cfg and Hydrophone trick none of this would be possible.

Thanks Hemisent, it is good to be back. I am more enthusiastic to keep trying to mod things since CB and all have made that discovery to waken up those boring DD. :up: In the end, that maybe is all that can be done, plus tweak the Active sonars to get a good balance. You can also change the ranges too.

Alot of possibilities. Alot of playing styles. I also prefer agressive DD even though it may not be realistic.

[timetraveller]

Thanks Jungman. I'll have a look and see if I can come up with something for a new tweak file.

TT

[Jungman]

Hey, I found out how to set the Hydrophones Sensitivity from deaf to infinite. It is really easy. It was discovered based upon changing one line at a time inspired by all you guys, CB and all's work. (plus 12 hours of testing).

Sim.cfg

[Hydrophone]
;Detection time=1 ;[s] Stock one second is pretty fast.
;Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1) Who knows. Nothing gained here.
;Height factor=0 ;[m] Depth? harder to detect? Needs testing.
;Waves factor=0.5 ;[>=0] Rough weather makes for harder detection.
;Speed factor=15 ;[kt] Destroyer speed, higher the worst detection. Above this no detection.
Noise factor=0.1 ;[>=0] 1.0 Sensitivity for speed sub noise. Lower is higher.


Setting the Noise Factor from default 1.0 to a lower number towards zero will make the Sensitivity to your Uboats speed noise and silent running go to infinite as you aproach zero. Also going higher than 1 makes it become deaf. no other change. I made comments on what the other values seem to do.

So Noise Factor set at 0.1 you must move at below 3 knots at silent running at 4 km. Within 500m you must be SR and zero speed.

I disabled the DD active sonar for these test! Only passive at work here.

Set it at 0.5 you can move at 4 knots without silent running out to 2 km of DD.

Set for 1.0 for normal.

I commented out the other factors for now.

Yeh! :rock: There you go.

[caspofungin]

prev post edited for coming across wrong. apologies.

Just To reiterate on my two favorite sim.cfg setings:

Here is my understanding of them. Lets imagine thse are knobs you can turn on a peice of equipment like a stereo.

Noise factor:(stock setting is 1.0)
1+---------------------0.5---------------------0
Low volume-----------middle-----------------Full blast!
DEAF----------------------------------------UBER




Thanks for confirming our previous findings, and getting some more numerical values.

sensitivity, though -- i think that does play a minor role. just trying to define exactly what, though.

[Jungman]

:oops: I see you alreay tried this. Yes. Same result. I must say I did not read through all 25 pages here and there.

I seem to have a good setting, if I hit a convoy, the DD come running me down.

I guess everyone will have their favorite combo. But I must do something to wake the DD up to alert level.

Setting it the Noise Factor= zero, I have them detecting me immediate in range of the hydrophone. Or if I torp a ship all hell breaks loose. They do ping me, and it is very hard to get away.

But the DD tactics are not smart. I wish they would give us the SDK to change stuff.

[CB..]

Hey, I found out how to set the Hydrophones Sensitivity from deaf to infinite. It is really easy. It was discovered based upon changing one line at a time inspired by all you guys, CB and all's work. (plus 12 hours of testing).

Sim.cfg

[Hydrophone]
;Detection time=1 ;[s] Stock one second is pretty fast.
;Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1) Who knows. Nothing gained here.
;Height factor=0 ;[m] Depth? harder to detect? Needs testing.
;Waves factor=0.5 ;[>=0] Rough weather makes for harder detection.
;Speed factor=15 ;[kt] Destroyer speed, higher the worst detection. Above this no detection.
Noise factor=0.1 ;[>=0] 1.0 Sensitivity for speed sub noise. Lower is higher.


Setting the Noise Factor from default 1.0 to a lower number towards zero will make the Sensitivity to your Uboats speed noise and silent running go to infinite as you aproach zero. Also going higher than 1 makes it become deaf. no other change. I made comments on what the other values seem to do.

So Noise Factor set at 0.1 you must move at below 3 knots at silent running at 4 km. Within 500m you must be SR and zero speed.

I disabled the DD active sonar for these test! Only passive at work here.

Set it at 0.5 you can move at 4 knots without silent running out to 2 km of DD.

Set for 1.0 for normal.

I commented out the other factors for now.

Yeh! :rock: There you go.


this is the trick COL7777 discovered---and in fact the basis for my mod!! :up:
you've got it the wrong way round tho--
it's NOT the fact that you have set the noisefactor so low that has ubered the hydrophones it's the fact that you have commented out the other factors--especially the sensitivity--once you realise this it saves you an awfull lot of confusion-- :yep:

any setting in the sim.cfg that is either removed entirely or commented out (same thing really) reverts to some default setting stored somewhere else---(not in the AI_sensors.dat i believe some where else tho i could be wrong there obviuosly)

but that's the trick-- don't get confused about the noise factor

the sensor is ubered because you commented out the other factors---do you follow the jist of it?

~~COL found that the game WILL run if you actually delete the sim.cfg from the game folder completely which gives you the clue you need to the way the game reverts to default settings if no sim.cfg entrys are found--and these default settings are ubered--

tho normally the noise and waves factors are very powerfull ways to control the effectiveness of the sensor--it doesn't have the sort of effect necessary to uber the sensor entirely--
hope this helps a little-- :up:

[Redwine]

@hemisent

(and others having issues w/ single destroyers)

consider implementing the min surface for sonars in ai_sensors -- a value of 60-80 seems to work best. allows you to evade active pinging by turning directly into or away from the escort, as was practiced irl. in combination w/ silent running, allows you to potentially get some distance and eventually break free.

Just an idea.... if you adjust a min value in anywhere, any measure under this value make the sub undetected.

I put the line "aspect = x,x" used into Sensors.cfg for own sub sensors, into the "Sim.cfg".

Not sure if it works, need more test specially on this point, but if you put a value

Aspect = 0,5

it means the aspect reduce at half the detection capability, but not totally to zero as if you use a minimun value setting.

I note i can scape from uber DDs leting them at back, it seems to be more easy than when they are at my side.

May be you want to try it.....

:up:




Had high hopes for this one. I set sail and purposely steered for the area around Gibralter. I was looking for trouble and could be assured I'd find it there. Sure enough, it didn't take long for one destroyer to emerge out of the darkness and see me. I took to the depths and waited to see what would happen next. It wasn't long before he called in several of his friends. One after another, more destroyers answered the call. Unfortunately, that was as exciting as it ever got. I set the engines for flank just to draw their attention and not once did any of them go to active sonar - not a single ping. A couple just continued to make sweeps and depth charge runs behind me, but never came close. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the hard work that went into this test mod, but it's going to need much more. I replaced the old files and I found that the destroyers were much more aggressive. Go flank and they've got ya.

The Captain


Hi Captain....... may be this can help you.

I think so..... only my impression...... the fact of you dont hear the pings, do not means the DDs are not pinging you.

I am not crazy, i think so, the gtame modelation of the ping sound is not linked to the Dds pinging activity.

You can verify it.

Just make a test file. Adjust visual and radar min height to a high value, to ensure you are not being detected by radar or visually.

Then reduce the active beam wide angle (min bearing) to in example 15 degrees, it is 15 degrees left, and 15 degees right.

Your beam now is 30 degrees wide.

Just go to periscope depth, to ensure you can follow the map icons.

Then put flank speed and let them to detect you, you will see they are going to your position, and turning right and left scanning for you.......

No ping sound.

Click on the map icon, then you are able to see, the dash line indicating the active sonar beam.

When you enter into about a 90 or 80 % of the active sonar beam, you will see the DDs just put bow on you, you are now centered in middle of the active sonar beam.

This means you was detected by active sonar, you are pinged.......

But no ping sound yet.......

The DDs is pinging you, you can see it at the icon on the map, the DDs stops to turn right, to left, to right to left to sacanning for you...... he put you just in middle of the active beam now, and is running just over your position......

But no ping sound......

When the DDs is more near, you start to hear the ping sound, but he is pinging you some time before.

What it means..... the range at wich you are hearing the ping, is not related with the pinging range capability.

It is a bug in my opinion, and is correctable with TT's MiniTweaker, wich can edit the range at wich a sound is audible.

I hope this can clarify and be a help for you on new ideas.

:up:


Hey, I found out how to set the Hydrophones Sensitivity from deaf to infinite. It is really easy. It was discovered based upon changing one line at a time inspired by all you guys, CB and all's work. (plus 12 hours of testing).

Sim.cfg

[Hydrophone]
;Detection time=1 ;[s] Stock one second is pretty fast.
;Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1) Who knows. Nothing gained here.
;Height factor=0 ;[m] Depth? harder to detect? Needs testing.
;Waves factor=0.5 ;[>=0] Rough weather makes for harder detection.
;Speed factor=15 ;[kt] Destroyer speed, higher the worst detection. Above this no detection.
Noise factor=0.1 ;[>=0] 1.0 Sensitivity for speed sub noise. Lower is higher.


Setting the Noise Factor from default 1.0 to a lower number towards zero will make the Sensitivity to your Uboats speed noise and silent running go to infinite as you aproach zero. Also going higher than 1 makes it become deaf. no other change. I made comments on what the other values seem to do.

So Noise Factor set at 0.1 you must move at below 3 knots at silent running at 4 km. Within 500m you must be SR and zero speed.

I disabled the DD active sonar for these test! Only passive at work here.

Set it at 0.5 you can move at 4 knots without silent running out to 2 km of DD.

Set for 1.0 for normal.

I commented out the other factors for now.

Yeh! :rock: There you go.


Hi Jungman...... my english is not good, but i note you discover the Sensivity value doesnt works fine..... lookt at the yellow line above you wrote.

That as a headache for us at first times of this topic, the matter is this value doesnt works, if the sensivity value at AI_Sensors.dat is not set at zero.

The game take the Sim.cfg sensivity value, only if the AI-Sensors.dat sensivity value is adjusted to zero.

This is explained into SH3Sim.act file, and discovered by .... i dont remember who was......

I think so the best way is to adjust sensivity into AI-Sensors.dat, then you can adjust a speciphied value for each determined sensor......

If you want to adjust sensivity via Sim.cfg, you must to adjust all sensivity values into AI-Sensors.dat to zero....... then you are able to use the Sim.cfg value, but.......... now you will a single sensivity value, it means, you will have the same sensivity for all sensors, disregarding model or age......

Sorry if i misunderstand that you wrote....

About your silent running settings, with my settings i attempt to found a behavior i think so was beliable.
I reach to be undetected by pasive sonars when at slow speed and silent running, except if you had the bad luck to be pinged.

I think so in real life a sub at silent running was litterally undetectable except it had been detected in the zone by periscope use visually or by radar, or use of high propeller speeds, and in the DDs seach he had the very bad luck to be pinged.

With my settings i am detected at slow speed, under 3 knots, at very near ranges, 500/1000, but when put silent running, the DDs can pass over me with no detection.

This is due to in the game, if you are not detected previously, by radar, visual or pasive sonar, they do not sails pinging.

If they had a previous advertence, and when they pass over me are pinging, i am detected.

:up:

[Jungman]

CB, I commented out each line. The only thing I noticed was the changes to Noise Factor.

Just commenting out Sensitivity did nothing/something. In my test I disabled active sonar.

If I set Noise Factor to zero. You get infinite detection. Give it a try. But as Capsfuna said, he did the same thing.

maybe it is not the effect you are looking for. I tested this for almost 24 hours straight. If you set Noise Factor towards zero, your sub is picked up more easy.

But I will look at commenting out Sensitivity only, it seemed not to make alot of difference. I will look at that over again.

I seen that Noise Factor is commented out in your tweak, that will cause the Noise Factor to be zero and that is what makes it go infinite (or it does the same thing?).

Please give it a try. Just stock Sim.cfg set the Noise Factor to zero. Try it at 10, 1.0, 0.01, 0. It makes a huge difference.

That as a headache for us at first times of this topic, the matter is this value doesnt works, if the sensivity value at AI_Sensors.dat is not set at zero.

The game take the Sim.cfg sensivity value, only if the AI-Sensors.dat sensivity value is adjusted to zero.

This is explained into SH3Sim.act file, and discovered by .... i dont remember who was......

I think so the best way is to adjust sensivity into AI-Sensors.dat, then you can adjust a speciphied value for each determined sensor......

If you want to adjust sensivity via Sim.cfg, you must to adjust all sensivity values into AI-Sensors.dat to zero....... then you are able to use the Sim.cfg value, but.......... now you will a single sensivity value, it means, you will have the same sensivity for all sensors, disregarding model or age......


Oh, I see. I just now seen this post. You are setting the values in AI_Sensors.dat to zero too. I guess I will look at it.

I assume you guys know about the Noise Factor effect then.


With my settings i am detected at slow speed, under 3 knots, at very near ranges, 500/1000, but when put silent running, the DDs can pass over me with no detection.


What values are you using exactly?

I get the same effect by setting noise Factor = 0.1 as above.

I would like to try out what you are using. :)

[CB..]

CB, I commented out each line. The only thing I noticed was the changes to Noise Factor.

Just commenting out Sensitivity did nothing/something. In my test I disabled active sonar.

If I set Noise Factor to zero. You get infinite detection. Give it a try. But as Capsfuna said, he did the same thing.

maybe it is not the effect you are looking for. I tested this for almost 24 hours straight. If you set Noise Factor towards zero, your sub is picked up more easy.

But I will look at commenting out Sensitivity only, it seemed not to make alot of difference. I will look at that over again.

I seen that Noise Factor is commented out in your tweak, that will cause the Noise Factor to be zero and that is what makes it go infinite (or it does the same thing?).

Please give it a try. Just stock Sim.cfg set the Noise Factor to zero. Try it at 10, 1.0, 0.01, 0. It makes a huge difference.

no no you misunderstand me mate--that is entirely the effect i was looking for--- :D

i was just trying to save you some confusion as to WHY the effect was working that's all--
it's not the noise factor being low it's the other factors being commented out that is creating the effect--

the effect is great---and is exactly how i got the mod started--

[Jungman]

I understand you quite well. That is not what I am finding. Not to make you upset. ;)

I can change the sensitivity via the Noise Factor only. I understand I have commeted out the Sensitivity line.

The reason the file you use is working is because you have commented out the Noise Factor line and that will cause it to go infinite.

It is the other way around, or it does the same thing either way.??

But I can control how Sensitive the hydrophones pick up the sub. From deaf to hearing the sub very well from 4000m away. Using the Noise Factor only.

But I will run another check to make absolutely sure. This is wierd.

I will not comment out Sensitivity line and see if it still works. Then I will know what the hex is going on.

Maybe commenting out Sensitivity line allows the Noise Factor to work. But I do not see if you use the noise factor. Those are lines from the player's Sensors.cfg and should not work inside the AI's enemy Sim.cfg file....

[CB..]

I understand you quite well. That is not what I am finding. Not to make you upset. ;)

I can change the sensitivity via the Noise Factor only. I understand I have commeted out the Sensitivity line.

The reason the file you use is working is because you have commented out the Noise Factor line and that will cause it to go infinite.

It is the other way around, or it does the same thing either way.

But I can control how Sensitive the hydrophjones pick up the sub. From deaf to hearing the sub very well from 4000m away.

well no you don't understand at all i'm afraid-- :cry:

I was actually trying to help lol!!!

noise factor is at 1 in the mod

not commented out---you have to allow for some noise in order for the subs screws to be masked when at low revs--with an ubered sensor you need to balance out that ubered effect with other limitations---

who cares why the dang effect works as long as it does right---again was hoping to save you some time based on the immense amount of time i've wasted in this thread chasing moonbeams---if you guys want to spend another 26 pages re-discovering all the same things discovered in the last 26 pages then i'm gonna lose the will to live lol :o :roll:

[caspofungin]

@redwine
you're absolutely right -- just beacuse you can't hear the pings, doesn't mean the escorts aren't using active sensors. you only hear the pings when you've been detected.

also, re aspect line -- tried it, didn't work for me.

@jungman
try setting sensitivity to 0 in ai_sensors, then play w/ the setting in sim.cfg. or just change each individual value in ai_sensors. it has some effect (for me) just not easily quantifiable or predictable.

[Jungman]

I left the Sensitivity line in as stock. It does nothing.

If I set the Noise Factor from (1.0) to (0.1), then I get a huge increase in the DD detecting me. I am using (0.5) and it works well as Redwine said. (he uses 0.8).

The sub screws are masked at low revs and using silent running. It seems to do the same thing.

I am not kidding you. Can you a least try it before dismising me?

Just set the Noise Factor to ZERO and see what happens (it is infinite red). It makes no difference if Sensitivity is commented out.

It does the same thing, but with the Noise Factor, I can set the level of detection. With just commenting out Sensitivity, you have no control over the volume (unless you can decifer the hydrophone values in AI_Sensors.dat)

What I am doing works great/ Why does not anyone at least try it?

It is not a Ego thing, I swear it works for me.

try setting sensitivity to 0 in ai_sensors,

exactly where at? for the AI_Hydrophone or each individual pasive sonar? There is no one value, as i was speaking to TT about. It is in a strange format I am still deciphering.

[caspofungin]

wait, wait, wait -- we're getting our wires crossed here.

the finding re noise factor is absolutely true -- no one's denying you. ducimus found the same stuff out back on pg19, but it's good to have independent confirmation.

stock sensitivity is not 0 -- at least, it wasn't for me. i changed all active and hydrophone sensitivity values in ai_sensors to 0 using tt's tweak tool w/ modified ai_sensors tweak file. that is necessary to let the game read you sensitivity values in sim.cfg -- documented in the sim.act file.

each individual entry needs to be changed (type 123P, 128P, QCLP, QGAP, etc.). ai_hydrophones is a generic entry that isn't used v often in campaign or single missions, same as ai_radar, ai_sonar. only ai_visual is used regularly.

then changing sensitivty has some effect.

i agree, it's likely not very important, since noise factor allows you to determine how easily you're picked up on hydrophones. but it does have some effect in my tests. if you've set sensitivity to 0 in ai_sensors or done tests w/ the ai_sensor sensitivity (for each individual sensor) set to a range of values, and have noticed no difference.. well, then, i guess i'm wrong.

[CB..]

I left the Sensitivity line in as stock. It does nothing.

If I set the Noise Factor from 1.0 to 0.1, then I get a huge increase in the DD detecting me.

I am not kidding you. Can you a least try it before dismising me?

You are wrong to tell me it is not working as I said. Have you tried it?

Just set the Noise Factor to ZERO and see what happens. It makes no difference if Sensitivity is commented out.

It does the same thing, but with the Noise Factor, I can set the level of detection. With just commenting out Sensitivity, you have no control over the volume (unless you can decifer the hydrophone values in AI_Sensors.dat)

What I am doing works great/ Why does not anyone at least try it?

It is not a Ego thing, I swear it works for me.

i'm not dismissing you --i have tried it---back in the earlier pages of the thread there is a discussion about precisely this effect-- yes-- as i said the noise factor and the wave factor ARE the most powerfull way to control the effectiveness of the sensors within certain limits--it works---but it has drawbacks that can be difficult to over come regarding sheer gameplay --(depending on what sort of problems your having as stock with your DD's of course to start with)

for me the results were not powerfull enough to overcome the stock convoy escorts lack of alertness and aggression during normal campaign gameplay---but if you are running a sim.cfg set up with only the noisefactor actually in use the rest commented out---then the issue is that by commenting out other the entrys this has a far more pronounced effect than those you leave in---

it's not an issue of wether there is an effect or no--it's an issue of WHY there is an effect---if you see what i mean? i hope? :hmm:

[caspofungin]

oh, and fyi, if you use sh3 commmander, make sure you change the sim.cfg in the backup file otherwise you'll be playing w/ stock values.

[Jungman]

OK that makes more sense. I have the US version. I want to reproduce what you did. It is science and an experiment should be reproduceable. I see what tools and method you used.

Dominicus and you do see the Noise Factor can have a huge effect. The Sensitivity (using my own hex editing) was mixed results; as you found.

The game mechanics of this SH3 is frustrating. Some of the most basic changes cannot be altered. I wonder if anyone ever solved the Night Vision problem of the crew.

Not using SH3 Commander yet.

@CB. for me the results were not powerfull enough to overcome the stock convoy escorts lack of alertness and aggression during normal campaign gameplay---but if you are running a sim.cfg set up with only the noisefactor actually in use the rest commented out---then the issue is that by commenting out other the entrys this has a far more pronounced effect than those you leave in---

it's not an issue of wether there is an effect or no--it's an issue of WHY there is an effect---if you see what i mean? i hope?

Yes, I understand now what you are doing. It is the Convoy Escorts Dumbness.

I only commented out the other factors for testing, it still works if left in but i think I know more what you are looking for...

If I leave all stock, and only change Noise Factor, it will work. But the DD convoy AI behaviour is still not good using this method.

The method you are using will make the DD come running after you for sure. In that sense, it is what you want to achieve.

If I only use Noise Factor, the DD convoy escorts are still dumb until I wake them up severely.

If I use your method of Sensitivity, then the convoy DD AI will wake up and they allcome after me.

I think that is what you want. And in that sense, I understand. Then you are correct. Your method will wake the escort DD to chase you. Noise Factor alone I was using will not do that.

edit: forgot the smiley :D After reading from page 19, you guys have really already went over all of this with a fine tooth comb.

[Redwine]

@redwine
you're absolutely right -- just beacuse you can't hear the pings, doesn't mean the escorts aren't using active sensors. you only hear the pings when you've been detected.

also, re aspect line -- tried it, didn't work for me.

Yes, we need to be ware about that, the point at wich we can hear the "pings" is not the poit where they start up to ping us.....

They are pinging us very early than the moment at wich we hear the pings.....

About the aspect...... it is present into the Sensors files for own sub, i am not sure if works for AI sensors, but it must..... any way, i neeed to make more test, speciphics on this point, i only put the line, and... in my impression, i can scape from 5 uber DDs if i am creful maintaining them at my back...... may be works, may be not...... :hmm:

Oh, I see. I just now seen this post. You are setting the values in AI_Sensors.dat to zero too. I guess I will look at it.

I assume you guys know about the Noise Factor effect then.

Not that way..... i choice the other way, to adjust a speciphied sensivity value into each individual sensor into AI-Sensors.dat file, using the Time Traveller Mini Tweaker program.....

For that i readed above, i undestand you are using a manual hexeditor to edit the file ?

May be you dont know about the TimeTraveller program ?
It give you an easy way to edit the file...... you can edit each individual value so easy...... only need to dont forget to remove the back up or renamed file from the working folder after edit.......sorry if i understand bad.


]With my settings i am detected at slow speed, under 3 knots, at very near ranges, 500/1000, but when put silent running, the DDs can pass over me with no detection.




What values are you using exactly?

I get the same effect by setting noise Factor = 0.1 as above.

I would like to try out what you are using. :)

You can download my files and check all my settings one or two page before this......page 26, look for "Detection Stage 12" file download........

Let me a minutes to check if i made new changes and i will put the news......

Anyway, it give me pasive coverage, but if an active sensor pick-up me i am well detected, it looks to be near to real life, in my opinion, may i be wrong ?

About the noise factor, you are right, and as CB wrote for you, noise factor make and wave factor make sense on the game....

Specially wave factor seems to have a lot of effect on the detection capability.

The matter is, i think so is good to have a determined noise factor, specially when you are attacked by many DDs, then their own noise plays against them, reducing their capabilities.

Same with waves, i like they have troubles detecting me into a storm.

Off course, managing even a single file we can make big changes in their detection capabilities, in example i was able to manage their capabilities, only changing the pasive and active sonar beams angles, with an excelent results.

Talking about results, we need to remember how we start the discusion here, not every body was having the same problem, CB has Dummy DDs, i was having uber DDs.

Finally after lot of research, we found how to manage the DDs, and then, there are many diferent behaviors to obtain, in example the CB one, wich makes the DDs attack you but after a logical time they return to escort the convoy, but you can search for another behavior, where the DDs maintain they prey on you for 30 hours......

Here enter the personal pleasure........

The important is, every day we know more about how to manage the DDs attacks.

May be a final mod, with many diferent behaviors can be done.

[CB..]

@CB. for me the results were not powerfull enough to overcome the stock convoy escorts lack of alertness and aggression during normal campaign gameplay---but if you are running a sim.cfg set up with only the noisefactor actually in use the rest commented out---then the issue is that by commenting out other the entrys this has a far more pronounced effect than those you leave in---

it's not an issue of wether there is an effect or no--it's an issue of WHY there is an effect---if you see what i mean? i hope?

Yes, I understand now what you are doing. It is the Convoy Escorts Dumbness.

I only commented out the other factors for testing, it still works if left in but i think I know more what you are looking for...

If I leave all stock, and only change Noise Factor, it will work. But the DD convoy AI behaviour is still not good using this method.

The method you are using will make the DD come running after you for sure. In that sense, it is what you want to achieve.

If I only use Noise Factor, the DD convoy escorts are still dumb until I wake them up severely.

If I use your method of Sensitivity, then the convoy DD AI will wake up and they allcome after me.

I think that is what you want. And in that sense, I understand. Then you are correct. Your method will wake the escort DD to chase you. Noise Factor alone I was using will not do that.

edit: forgot the smiley :D After reading from page 19, you guys have really already went over all of this with a fine tooth comb.

yup that's it---here's a good example of what i am talking about (this as a result of using the mod i made for this issue)

having tried four times to approach a convoy and four times being beaten back without result by the DD's--i finally got myself into the ideal attack position and was able to get into a good firing position- sinking a tanker
--all completely undetected-- once the tanker went up the DD's found me and sank me lol---so there's fully dynamic DD behaviuor-- on the first four attacks the DD's detected me before i got into an attack position--and kept me deep and slow DC-ing me all the time- untill the convoy was safely past--then the DD's went back to the convoy--on the final attack i was able to get past them and sink the tanker- only to get sunk -- i don't know why they were able to sink me on the last occasion and not on the first four occasions during the same attack on the same convoy during the same career patrol--nor do i want to know why!!! chances are i was getting cocky after surviving the previous four assaults--and got punished accordingly :ping:

the fact is that the DD's did their job--so i am more than satisfied and am no longer looking for anwers to my original problem of dumb convoy escorts--they ain't dumb no more--
i'm no longer testing this mod--i am playing SH3--hopefully you can get something you want going in a similar fashion--keep at it ---me i'm finished and am taking part in the thread out of interest more than anything--may be i can help

[timetraveller]

Jungman,

Best I can tell, all those Range, Elevation, Sensitivity values are already in the Mini Tweaker ready for tweaking.

TT

Your 123A example-

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/9009/sens5lw.gif

[Jungman]

:yep: Sure is. I did not know about your tool until today!

Thanks TT and CB , and Redwine and everyone for your help.

I can finially play a decent game challenge against the convoy escorts using all the new settings. Tweaked slightly for me.

Now time to start a fresh new install and career for the weekend voyage. :P

[thecaptain]

Thanks Redwine. I just saw this part of the thread. I'll give that a try.

The Captain

[Kpt-Wolf]

Has someone now the settings for the destroyer, that they are better as a download?
Because I cant read 28 pages :)

Thx
Wolf

[Redwine]

Has someone now the settings for the destroyer, that they are better as a download?
Because I cant read 28 pages :)

Thx
Wolf

You have my last files used here....

http://rapidshare.de/files/9419664/DD_s_Detection_13_Stage.zip.html

In my files you are too undetectable for pasive sensors when at Slow speed plus Silent Running.
Depth Charges and Helgedogs modified.
Decoys are more effective now.
Dummy DDs are not too dummy now, and uber DDs are not to uber now.
Not finished, on test yet.



In page 26 you have CB's files for download with interesting behaviour.

Ask Caspofungin, he has a set of files with very nice behaviour.



May be more users can share their files with you......

I will apreciate your comments.

[APHill]

Hi Rewine and CB,

Will your destroyer mods work with RUb 1.45?

Thanks,
AP Hill

[caspofungin]

at present, i'm trying to see if i can add a second active sonar to escorts, to simulate use of 144 q and 147 sword attachments -- giving escorts ability to maintain contact at close range. i've tried using the nodes for radio-direction rinding and radar detectors, which aren't used, with no joy.

does anyone have any ideas? eg how to add a second "n" node for active sonars?

this is just icing on the cake -- if it proves to be impossible, i'll just compromise on the ai_sensors values for type 144 and 147. but it would be nice to implement.

[rulle34]

@Redwine and CB.
Great work on this :up:
What is the big difference in your mods?
(Have not read through all the pages)

[HEMISENT]

Redwine,
I DL'd your files last night, will be starting fresh this morning.
The pinging/active sonar had me going bonkers for a long time but your explanation made a lot of sense. I never thought about the possibility of DD's going active but the pinging sound not being heard(bug?). That explains sooo much regarding single DD behaviour.
So far I've come up with a sim.cfg which is pretty close to yours + an AI_dat file that seems to be working well-still working off of CB's posted settings as I think he's right on for a non RUB setup.

Thanks again.

Once again a huge Thank You for TT and his mini-tweaker

[Redwine]

Hi Rewine and CB,

Will your destroyer mods work with RUb 1.45?

Thanks,
AP Hill

I dont know anything about IUB or RUB :hmm: ...... i dont use them.

You can try and comment, back up your files and try...... you experience may be helpful for others.... :up: :up:


at present, i'm trying to see if i can add a second active sonar to escorts, to simulate use of 144 q and 147 sword attachments -- giving escorts ability to maintain contact at close range. i've tried using the nodes for radio-direction rinding and radar detectors, which aren't used, with no joy.

does anyone have any ideas? eg how to add a second "n" node for active sonars?

this is just icing on the cake -- if it proves to be impossible, i'll just compromise on the ai_sensors values for type 144 and 147. but it would be nice to implement.

With full respect and consideration for your job ..... i tryed your files..... and DDs are very good maintaining contact on you.

With your files i have the behaviour i was looking to fix, DDs can maintain contact on me even when they are too near, just over me, and they can "look" my full rudder turns.

I like your files, they are very nice ..... but i think so DDs has good enought capability in your files, they follows my full rudder turns when just over me with no problems of contact loss......may be you dont need to increase it.

Just an opinion....... :up: :up: :up: your files are nice.

Any way this is not a mod..... is a pack of diferent personal settings based on diferent personal tastes.

But your point to look how to add a sensor is so interesting an may be so useful....... maintain research.


@Redwine and CB.
Great work on this :up:
What is the big difference in your mods?
(Have not read through all the pages)

I dont tryed CB files yet..... i dont finished mines.
But CB files has an interested behavior described by CB, DDs escorts, attack you, and after a logical time, they back to escort the convoy or battlegroup, as if they was worry about the presence of more subs, a wolf pack in the zone.


I am sticky now with radar warning, i cnat found how to rise up my radar warning sensor to the top of the snorkel and periscope to have radar warning when submerged at snorkel depth...... :damn:

When finish i will take a look to CB files, i like his behavior, but i like those 30 hours prey and hunting on the sub too........

Both was real behaviors from real life....... will be wonderful if we can have both behaviours, in example long hunting for DDs (hunters) and CB behaviour for DEs (escorts) ..........

I dont know if it can be posible........ :hmm: :hmm:


Redwine,
I DL'd your files last night, will be starting fresh this morning.
The pinging/active sonar had me going bonkers for a long time but your explanation made a lot of sense. I never thought about the possibility of DD's going active but the pinging sound not being heard(bug?). That explains sooo much regarding single DD behaviour.

Yes, they are pinging you before you har the pings, it is not a bug, it is due to the settings for that sound into Sh3.sdl file....... i think so.

Almost with my files, go to periscope depth, put flank to be detected, they start up looking for you, you will see how they turn left and right looking for you..... Why for ? you are into the pasive sensor radio..... they are pinging (i set a restricted 30* wide angle for active sensors, they tun left right to reach a 90* sacnning zone) and you dont hear anything.

Click on the map icon for DD, you will see the dash lines for the active sensor.

Then when you enter into the active sensor radio, about its 80%, they detect you, using the active sensor they put you just on his bow..... and finish to turn left-right...... you are captured by active sensor...... you cant hear the pings.

Few seconds later, you start up haring the pings.

I think so it is due to the radio, volume, priority and more, settings into the Sh3.sdl file wich controls each sound....

May be it can be fixed. but not too much important, i think so.



So far I've come up with a sim.cfg which is pretty close to yours + an AI_dat file that seems to be working well-still working off of CB's posted settings as I think he's right on for a non RUB setup.

Thanks again.

What behaviour do you obtained..... post comments, may some body found a good blend between all diferent settings.

:up: :up:

[CB..]

[
When finish i will take a look to CB files, i like his behavior, but i like those 30 hours prey and hunting on the sub too........

Both was real behaviors from real life....... will be wonderful if we can have both behaviours, in example long hunting for DDs (hunters) and CB behaviour for DEs (escorts) ..........

I dont know if it can be posible........ :hmm: :hmm:




should be do-able Red!

note that the generic DD's (from the mission editor menu) don't use the named sensors in the AI_sensor.dat--they in theory use the generic sensors entrys from the dat file---so sensor set up can be adjusted seperately for the named convoy escorts and by substituting un-named generic DD's for the named hunter killer ships these DD's will use seperately edited sensors--to achieve different behaviuor--

i've just had a quick check on the campaigb.rnd and it seems that some at least of the specific hunter killer groups use the "no name" DD's
so in theory all you need to do is edit the generic AI sensors AI_hydrophone etc etc

differently from the named sensors and you can get different behaviuor from these DD's ---perhaps requiring a small edit to some of the stock killer groups to make them generic DD's
like thus

[RndGroup 121]
GroupName=BRDDHunters_41_03
Category=0
CommandEntry=0
Long=-630500.000000
Lat=4345700.000000
Height=0.000000
DelayMin=60
DelayMinInterv=4320
SpawnProbability=35
RandStartRadius=0.000000
ReportPosMin=-1
ReportPosProbability=100
Heading=180.311005
Speed=14.000000
ColumnsNo=1
Spacing=500
DeleteOnLastWaypoint=true
CurrentInstanceID=0
GameEntryDate=19411228
GameEntryTime=100
GameExitDate=19420215
GameExitTime=0
NextWP=0

[RndGroup 121.RndUnit 1]
Type=4; <<<<<note the lack of "name"
Origin=British
Side=0
CargoExt=-1
CargoInt=-1
CfgDate=19390101
No=1
Escort=false
SpawnProbability=100
CrewRating=2

[Redwine]

[
When finish i will take a look to CB files, i like his behavior, but i like those 30 hours prey and hunting on the sub too........

Both was real behaviors from real life....... will be wonderful if we can have both behaviours, in example long hunting for DDs (hunters) and CB behaviour for DEs (escorts) ..........

I dont know if it can be posible........ :hmm: :hmm:

should be do-able Red!

:o :huh: :88) Are you Santa Klauss or what .... CB ?

So Good ! :up:



note that the generic DD's (from the mission editor menu)

I dont explorate the mission editor yet, it seems to dont works fine for me, objects move from the position i put them, mouse is sticky.....not too much experience there.



don't use the named sensors in the AI_sensor.dat--they in theory use the generic sensors entrys from the dat file---so sensor set up can be adjusted seperately for the named convoy escorts and by substituting un-named generic DD's for the named hunter killer ships these DD's will use seperately edited sensors--to achieve different behaviuor--

i've just had a quick check on the campaigb.rnd and it seems that some at least of the specific hunter killer groups use the "no name" DD's

so in theory all you need to do is edit the generic AI sensors AI_hydrophone etc etc

It sounds good..... because it is easy to do. But....
If i am not wrong the main point responsible for the behaviour in wich they stops to prey on you...... and back to escort the convoy o battlegroup is due to the losse contact time .........

[AI detection]
Lost contact time=15 ;[min]

[AI detection]
Lost contact time=5 ;[min]

I am wrong ?




differently from the named sensors and you can get different behaviuor from these DD's

This is a poin..... how do you make them to have that behaviour editing the generic sensors ?




---perhaps requiring a small edit to some of the stock killer groups to make them generic DD's
like thus

[RndGroup 121]
GroupName=BRDDHunters_41_03
Category=0
CommandEntry=0
Long=-630500.000000
Lat=4345700.000000
Height=0.000000
DelayMin=60
DelayMinInterv=4320
SpawnProbability=35
RandStartRadius=0.000000
ReportPosMin=-1
ReportPosProbability=100
Heading=180.311005
Speed=14.000000
ColumnsNo=1
Spacing=500
DeleteOnLastWaypoint=true
CurrentInstanceID=0
GameEntryDate=19411228
GameEntryTime=100
GameExitDate=19420215
GameExitTime=0
NextWP=0

[RndGroup 121.RndUnit 1]
Type=4; <<<<<note the lack of "name"
Origin=British
Side=0
CargoExt=-1
CargoInt=-1
CfgDate=19390101
No=1
Escort=false
SpawnProbability=100
CrewRating=2

I cant understand well this point.

Are you refering in example to erase some lines to convert them into units using generic sensors in example like this......

[Unit 93]
;Name=BR DD Clemson#4 >>>>> erased by the ;
;Class=DDClemson >>>>> erased by the ;
Type=4
Origin=British
Side=1

Can you explain this point step by step .....more for "dummies" :rotfl:

[CB..]

well obviously there are limitations--but was just trying to offer some possibilities-- :roll: :damn:

you'll have to use a bit of imagination ----scary i know--

[caspofungin]

@redwine

surprised you're still getting the uber-following, i haven't seen that in campaign or in tests. bear in mind that escorts can hear you at anything greater than ahead slow -- you must be at silent running.

re different behaviour for escorts vs h/k groups
that would be pretty sweet. how to implement, though.... the generic ai_sonar in ai_sensors file would allow you to alter their detection chances, but the contact time is still defined in sim.cfg, without separation between generic ships and named classes. maybe give them hydrophones w/ extreme long range and high sensitivity?

[Redwine]

@redwine

surprised you're still getting the uber-following, i haven't seen that in campaign or in tests. bear in mind that escorts can hear you at anything greater than ahead slow -- you must be at silent running.

Understand, i was having protection by silent running at low speed, but that i want to explain is they has very good detection when just at my back so near and even over me.

I suspect you use very depth angles and short min ranges for sensors, so they dont lose the link when so near.

Your files are nice, that i want to mention was i think so you dont need to increase Dds capability more than that, ofcourse it is just a matter of personal pleasure, only a feed back, nothing more. :up:



re different behaviour for escorts vs h/k groups
that would be pretty sweet. how to implement, though.... the generic ai_sonar in ai_sensors file would allow you to alter their detection chances, but the contact time is still defined in sim.cfg, without separation between generic ships and named classes.

That was what i asked to CB.
Lose contact time is the same for all :hmm:

[CCIP]

CB - just tried playing a bit with yours, and it seems pretty interesting so far.

Two questions:

1) Did you set a minimum depth for enemy hydrophone detections or do they can they hear you on the surface, too? Just checking, sort of suspicious if it was radar that did me in. It would really mess things up a bit for me if they could, but I think by default they aren't.

2) The sonar pinging is ever-present, but I'm wondering how often they actually ping me directly as opposed to just hearing me. :hmm:

[CCIP]

I think I mostly answered my own questions there by taking a look at the sensors file.

Looks quite a bit like stock, actually. I'm thinking it might be worth reducing the sonar arcs a little bit to avoid overkill by some of the more persistent ships later in the war, but we'll see :hmm:

I'm really starting to come around to your way of managing these things, actually. As much as it's good to have escorts chasing you for a long time, it seems that an occasional short but harsh attack and a better chance of the enemy getting a quick fix on you may well benefit the game mechanics and balance the dangers more realistically.

[CB..]

CB - just tried playing a bit with yours, and it seems pretty interesting so far.

Two questions:

1) Did you set a minimum depth for enemy hydrophone detections or do they can they hear you on the surface, too? Just checking, sort of suspicious if it was radar that did me in. It would really mess things up a bit for me if they could, but I think by default they aren't.

2) The sonar pinging is ever-present, but I'm wondering how often they actually ping me directly as opposed to just hearing me. :hmm:

no just the min and max distances for the hydrophones--everything else in the dat file is as stock--

re the active--shows you how dynamic the set up as other folks have said they rarely get pinged at all---me i get pinged at the normal rate (if there is such a thing)

yup i just wanted DD's that did their job--were alert as dynamic as possible and aggressive--beyond that i didn't try to get too finicky about it--it's too easy to get bogged down in trying to force the AI to do what you want it to--i wanted the AI to do what it was meant to do---work to prevent me from sinking merchants--that's the game at the end of the day-

[CCIP]

Gotcha, thanks! :)

I think it might be wise to tone down the sonar arcs just a little bit to prevent permanent locks from later in the war (say, even to 70 degrees rather than the full 90), but otherwise I'm definitely 'on board' with your changes. :up:

[CB..]

Gotcha, thanks! :)

I think it might be wise to tone down the sonar arcs just a little bit to prevent permanent locks from later in the war (say, even to 70 degrees rather than the full 90), but otherwise I'm definitely 'on board' with your changes. :up:

ok thanks!
let me know how you get on with the reduced sonar arcs--

[CCIP]

Just wondering by the way, under what conditions do the hydrophones 'hear' you? Is it anytime you go to faster speeds, anywhere?

Just curious, actually, since I'm wondering whether Jungman's min range cutoff for sonar would be good to include or not. He had the sonars cut off at 200m, to simulate the ASDIC arc, but actually - from playing with it for a while, I'd decided that what this resulted in was constantly inaccurate drops. Because the sonar cut off at 200m, while you could easily make a dash at flank and dive deeper, which resulted in drops that were about 30m too shallow and a good distance further behind your position (which would not be a bad thing in itself, if it didn't happen EVERY time).

We'll see. So far I've only had a couple of encounters in campaign, and both resulted in the ship picking me up on radar from around 4km, giving me a chase, making a single albeit inaccurate pass (they couldn't get sonar contact), then going back to their usual duty.

What I DID like very much, is that they dropped closer and deeper than usual despite that - before, they would lose contact with you as soon as you went under the surface, dropping too shallow and often blowing themselves up ( :doh: ). Now, it seems that until you go silent, they have an idea how deep you would be. Which makes sense to me, because no real DD captain would be dumb enough to assume you only dove to Periscope Depth when he showed up :)

"uber" hydrophones are the way to go, I think :up:

[CB..]

Just wondering by the way, under what conditions do the hydrophones 'hear' you? Is it anytime you go to faster speeds, anywhere?

Just curious, actually, since I'm wondering whether Jungman's min range cutoff for sonar would be good to include or not. He had the sonars cut off at 200m, to simulate the ASDIC arc, but actually - from playing with it for a while, I'd decided that what this resulted in was constantly inaccurate drops. Because the sonar cut off at 200m, while you could easily make a dash at flank and dive deeper, which resulted in drops that were about 30m too shallow and a good distance further behind your position (which would not be a bad thing in itself, if it didn't happen EVERY time).

We'll see. So far I've only had a couple of encounters in campaign, and both resulted in the ship picking me up on radar from around 4km, giving me a chase, making a single albeit inaccurate pass (they couldn't get sonar contact), then going back to their usual duty.

What I DID like very much, is that they dropped closer and deeper than usual despite that - before, they would lose contact with you as soon as you went under the surface, dropping too shallow and often blowing themselves up ( :doh: ). Now, it seems that until you go silent, they have an idea how deep you would be. Which makes sense to me, because no real DD captain would be dumb enough to assume you only dove to Periscope Depth when he showed up :)

"uber" hydrophones are the way to go, I think :up:

the DD's can only hear you on hydrophones whilst they are either stationary or moving very very slowly (max speed is half a knot) this is to balance out the ubered effect (which if not cut back by other factors is 100% uber all the time ) AND to create good dynamics ---DD's need to talk to each other in order to find you--one stays still whilst another will come over to investigate---making the best out of the co-operative AI routines--

you will find that if you persist in any attack agressively the DC drops begin to slowly increase in accuracy as more DD's begin to join in the attack i assume providing better contact on your position--this is fairly dynamic and dependant on how close to the merchants you are and how noisy you are---try to resist the temptation to "test" this in specific situations---looking for patterns that might need alteration ---again this sort of testing only provides red herrings in my experience easily misintepreted as concrete never changing behaviour-( i can't emphasise this enough --it just doesn't help)--play thru a normal campaign career---- forget about the mod and see what the over-all effect is--if the DD's are protecting the convoys effectively and the gameplay is good then forget about the minute details of the thing and look at the over-all "feel" and "playability" ---over time other modification will naturally suggest them selves---such as perhaps consideration regarding the radar---i too find the radar a b~tch late war ---and would like to calm it down ever so slightly-but i haven't done this as yet as i want to make sure that i'm not just suffering from "test-mono-mania" finding problems that actually are simply elements of the gameplay and really just inconvient when testing other things rather than a direct issue--

the question is--in normal gameplay would this actually be a genuine problem--or am i just pissed that it's making the tests bl**dy inconvienent?

[CCIP]

I agree about the testing to some degree - though some basic tests are always neccesary. Otherwise, hey - I spent two weeks in the summer constantly testing and tweaking damage and escort behaviour - and by the end of it I felt it was all perfecto. But then I started observing WaW campaigns, where most people use RUb careers, along with playing out my own career - and what I started seeing that, for all the set-up test results, the DD's became strangely incompetent and really became an ASW weapon that only really works when you make some total screw-up. :hmm:

Anyway, I think I definitely like your idea - though I wonder how often the DD's really go to a stop.

I've only dropped the sonar from 90 degrees off bearing to 70 degrees, just to prevent the super-lock of the late war (where a single circling DD can keep practically constant lock on you) - which, by the way, was discovered through campaign play and not any specific testing :)

I think we should calm down a bit with this sensor affair. Ever since Jungman first made the SonarDC mod early in the summer and exposed the detection problems that the game has, this has continued to be a sore spot in SHIII - mostly because it's not the sensors but the AI that are the real problem. I don't think we'll ever find a complete solution, but suppose we can always try to compensate :hmm:

[CB..]

I agree about the testing to some degree - though some basic tests are always neccesary. Otherwise, hey - I spent two weeks in the summer constantly testing and tweaking damage and escort behaviour - and by the end of it I felt it was all perfecto. But then I started observing WaW campaigns, where most people use RUb careers, along with playing out my own career - and what I started seeing that, for all the set-up test results, the DD's became strangely incompetent and really became an ASW weapon that only really works when you make some total screw-up. :hmm:

:

my point entirely it's only after you have stopped testing and started playing the game normally that you can tell if the mod you have made actually works---because you play the game differently when testing than under normal conditions---so the tests are allways out of context

you end up focussing on tiny single events such as that circling DD you mentioned and extrapolating an entire series of changes based on this single anomaly---why the heck shouldn't it circle your last known position--it's a DD that's it's job--


the point here is that any complete solution would be a complete waste of time---utterly predictable utterly boring utterly unrealistic--those were human beings on those DD's --sometimes wet -cold- fed up- scared --angy and all the other unscriptable emotional states--

no no ---i want the unpredictability--i want the anomalys---i don't want a complete soloution---it is a red herring--leave that stuff to the realism police--

my mod is finished i'll only alter it when i discover something interesting that can enhance the gameplay--or i find a definite and impassable problem with it as is-- :ping:

i dont want to bully the AI into submission --

[HEMISENT]

[quote="CB
my point entirely it's only after you have stopped testing and started playing the game normally that you can tell if the mod you have made actually works---because you play the game differently when testing than under normal conditions---so the tests are allways out of context
[/quote]

CB, I couldn't agree more with this thought. As your aware I drove myself crazy over the behaviour of lone DD's working with RUB and your original settings. Once I got that settled down I'm now on the second mission of my test campaign. Overall the the gameplay is acceptable. My first mission was October 1943. I sunk under 10,000 tons and barely made it home with 16% hull integrity. The DD"s did what they were supposed to do, forced me into taking quick shots from a distance, kept me down and beat me up long enough for the convoy to get away and left a single escort to sit on me for awhile. Still fine tuning but slowly getting there.

[CB..]

:up: yup it's the only sane way to try out things--the only way that works anyway!

i agree once you get into 1943 things start getting tough - the improved radar and the greater use of k-guns etc really starts to impose it self--every merchant sunk becomes a major achievment--and the DD's if they even get a sniff of you before you get into firing postion will make pretty dang sure you have to abandon the attack and try again--i have to admit i don't argue with them lol--if they detect me prior to the torp launch i get out of there and try again--makes those FAT torps available in the renown "shop" look less like fancy toys and more like life save-ing essentail bits of kit!

glad your getting some-where with the RUB adapation--

:up:

[CCIP]

I was very impressed just now CB, and I'm definitely coming around to your "uber hydrophone, quick lost contact time" approach. :)

Ran into a Clemson in stormy weather; and he managed to chase me around for 2 hours (!) dropping charges pretty close to me (but always a bit behind) - without ever pinging me!

Normally, he would've left me alone after maybe half an hour. But not this time :)

[CB..]

I was very impressed just now CB, and I'm definitely coming around to your "uber hydrophone, quick lost contact time" approach. :)

Ran into a Clemson in stormy weather; and he managed to chase me around for 2 hours (!) dropping charges pretty close to me (but always a bit behind) - without ever pinging me!

Normally, he would've left me alone after maybe half an hour. But not this time :)

ok nice one---yes the whole thing is fairly dynamic and you can not entirely predict what each individual DD is going to be like when you encounter it--next time you meet one it will most likely work out differently-(which may well be less impressive but's that part of the interest yes?)-the short lost contact time coupled with the ubered phones does seem to work to enable the AI to behave in a more dynamic fashion---allowing the DD's to decide for them selves on the fly what to do rather than being forced into a set pattern of behaviuor by a longer lost contact time--

as stock the AI just defaults to a set search pattern that goes on for a set period of time which is frankly --dull-- with this set up the AI makes this decision "on the fly" and the results are dynamic--a lot more interesting and unpredictable "cat and mouse" stuff going on---

[CCIP]

I'm thinking of dropping the min range for the hydrophone, actually. He dropped just a liiitle bit too far aft of me to be a real threat. I think if I reduce it, he should give me more of a run for my money :)

But we'll see. I can only imagine this vs. more than one DD. Now that would be something to see.

[CB..]

I'm thinking of dropping the min range for the hydrophone, actually. He dropped just a liiitle bit too far aft of me to be a real threat. I think if I reduce it, he should give me more of a run for my money :)

But we'll see. I can only imagine this vs. more than one DD. Now that would be something to see.

well yes this mod is aimed at convoy escorts--thats the main hub of the gameplay--remember look at the big picture not individual encounters--

if all encounters with lone DD's were the same you'd have an easy time testing stuff--- but you'd allso be bored out of your mind--
so there's your basic contradiction in terms lol

same goes for convoy escorts---you wanna test or you wanna play?

[CCIP]

I think I'm falling into a trap of letting the escorts do what they're doing vs. trying to make them do what I want them to do :doh:

Don't worry, I'll get over it soon enough :lol:

[Jungman]

I can emphasize. I spent so much time testing instead of playing the game; I could not see the forest for the single tree fixation! :88)

[CCIP]

But you know the story. Driven by the curiosity of finding out what happens if you set the min range to 600 instead of 1000, even if they tell you it'll only mess things up. But you still have to see it for yourself, because a cooler destroyer might come out...

...I once stuck a paperclip into an electric outlet back when I was a kid for the very same reason :doh: :dead:

[CCIP]

CB -

Observations :D

1) Dropping the hydrophone Min Range from 1000 to 600 seems to have had a nice result. I'll have to play with it more, but it seems to give them just a little bit more of an idea where you are. It gives them a better chance of causing some damage.

2) I'm kind of worried about their hydrophone performance in storms. I think it's a little too good. It seems that they can hear me on the surface (since you often drop below the Max Height of -10m in storms), and it does seem a little odd to me that they can get my position despite huge waves while I'm at periscope depth. Maybe time to re-introduce a bit of a wave factor?

[CB..]

CB -

Observations :D

1) Dropping the hydrophone Min Range from 1000 to 600 seems to have had a nice result. I'll have to play with it more, but it seems to give them just a little bit more of an idea where you are. It gives them a better chance of causing some damage.

2) I'm kind of worried about their hydrophone performance in storms. I think it's a little too good. It seems that they can hear me on the surface (since you often drop below the Max Height of -10m in storms), and it does seem a little odd to me that they can get my position despite huge waves while I'm at periscope depth. Maybe time to re-introduce a bit of a wave factor?

all sounds fairly reasonable--but you know my view on this---if you spend the next 30 pages saying this destroyer did this and that destroyer did that your going to lose the ability to draw any use-full conclusions from any of it and no usable "work" will emerge at the end--

you know it's funny we discussed the worrys inherent in making mods of this nature in that some one some-where will put his imaginary gold braided hat on and pontificate about how such and such a thing wasn't realistic -or this in that was not as specified in this or that account -of this or that conflict--and just how often the "realism police" can end up worrying modders to death--- fortunately for me i have just enough experience modding for SH2 that i have allmost gotten this "worry" out of my system--so can say frankly i don't give a damn---reading between the lines of such comments reveals what is really being requested----lol -- :arrgh!:

--

[CCIP]

Fair enough, but I'll still play around with it a little :D

Just making observations. Mind you, I'm not really 'testing' it, just playing my patrols. I realize you've spent more time with this than is probably even needed, but the idea is still very novel to me, and I'm inherently used to trying to play around with it and look for things that could still be changed.

Don't worry about it then. But no need to read between the lines - and yes, I think we need to accept that by this point we won't get a 'realistic destroyer' in SHIII - but maybe at least a more balanced one. Which is why I'm still tweaking around. Not to say your version already isn't :)

[CB..]

Fair enough, but I'll still play around with it a little :D

Just making observations. Mind you, I'm not really 'testing' it, just playing my patrols. I realize you've spent more time with this than is probably even needed, but the idea is still very novel to me, and I'm inherently used to trying to play around with it and look for things that could still be changed.

Don't worry about it then. But no need to read between the lines - and yes, I think we need to accept that by this point we won't get a 'realistic destroyer' in SHIII - but maybe at least a more balanced one. Which is why I'm still tweaking around. Not to say your version already isn't :)

yes no problem--as you mention in the sonar thread because there is no genuine blind spot created after a DC explosion it's just demonstatebly impossible to create a fully "realism" based sensor mod--in fact the only way to create some sort of psuedo blind spot is to write extremely un-realistic figures into the files--couple that with the stock weaknesses of the AI to start with and any "realism" mod has to be forgotten completely--

(i believe co-incidentaly that the short lost contact time is allso the closest thing available for giving the impression of a DC blind spot)

no harm in experimenting tho--but any realism will be only as percieved in gameplay terms rather than specifically fact/figures based--all done with mirrors in other words lol! ;)

[CCIP]

Yep.

Well, I'm just trying to mess around with the hydrophone a bit myself now, trying to make it just a touch less sensitive in certain conditions, so to say. I'm still not entirely clear on how it works, since it seems that the DD's seem to 'hear' you when you're on silent running even with engines completely 'dead'. :hmm:

Chances are, Uber is the best way to go. Looking back at my last patrol, I can't say my experience ended up being very far off from real accounts, even if it seemed like the DDs were a bit too sensitive sometimes. At least they actually chased me.

[Nedlam]

CB, you twisted, sick, masochistic modder!!

This mod is phenominal :rock: I tested it out in a quick engagement in a career campaign and have spent the past 1 1/2 just trying to shake off a lone River Class Escort! The only reason I lost it in the end is I broke down and used a decoy (I wanted to try it without gadgets first).

Frankly I was getting a little bored with the AI in the game. Dive to 100 - 150 meters, run silent, wait 15 - 20 minutes(game time), evade them, rinse and repeat.

I am going to have nightmares of that ASDIC: PING! PING! PING! PING!

I need to rethink the whole way I do things in this sim.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

and if there is anyone else I've missed that contributed to this (I see a lot of names running around in this thread) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

[Marhkimov]

I can't believe I haven't tried CB's settings yet... :nope:

Must find time later on...

[CCIP]

CB -

do you mind if I release a custom-tweaked version of your mod when I'm eventually happy with it? With all due credit of course.


Actually, I think it would be nice for someone to compile a collection of the different sensor 'flavors' for people to choose from at will :hmm:

[Marhkimov]

If CB agrees, I think that's a great idea!

[Reece]

Ditto! :up:

[caspofungin]

@CCIP

re tweaking hydrophones for dec sensitivity -- difficult.

the alteration in sim.cfg causes the hydrophones to become uber -- you'd get exactly the same effect if you were to just delete the [hydrophone] entry. most of the values have no effect -- apart from waves and noise, and i'm not sure that even they have an effect in the significantly altered [hydrophone] section (at least in my experience, in prolonged testing in single missions and campaign). correct me if i'm wrong.

if you want the hydrophones to be less sensitive in certain weather, replace the sim.cfg [hydrophone] entry w/ the stock. then drop the noise factor (>=1+ makes them deaf, 0 is uber -- in my setup, i use 1.0-0.8 -- allows you to become undetectable at silent running but limits the range you're detected at) then alter the waves factor (0 is deaf, 1 is uber.)

the problem w/ returning the sim.cfg to its original configuration is that you lose the hypersensitivity. eg if you delete the [hydrophone] values, you'll be picked up instantly at the range defined in ai_sensors for that given hydrophone. if you use the original [hydrophone] config, even if you drop the noise factor, you'll never get detected at anywhere near the same range as w/ the hyper setup, and you won't get the same dd reactions.

cb's tweak works as effectively as it does because it makes the dd constantly acquire-lose-reaquire you. the hyper-hydrophones detect you at long range, then the high min range forces the use of active sonar. the result is a range of varied reactions, definitely superior to stock.

re different "flavours" of sensors--
http://rapidshare.de/files/9340606/sonartweaks0.2.rar.html

is what i'm using. check the readme. late war brit sonars are a work in progress. re the remainder -- currently testing in campaign to decide between current setup vs hyper sonar (delete [sonar] entry in sim.cfg but then decrease the arc to 80deg from 140 to give yourself a chance.) initially based on historical values [caspo ducks as cb flings monitor at head ;) ] but gameplay is the end goal -- all feedback welcome. cb's setup gives varied dd behaviour, esp in groups -- escorts stop and listen, drop anywhere from 1 dc to a full barrage, etc. my setup -- see readme for details. different philosophy, different results.

[CCIP]

Actually, all I'm really doing with the hydrophones right now is reducing their maximum range. Since the contact info is shared by all units, I think we could get away with a 3km range rather than 8km.

We'll see, I suppose. I know I can't have everything :)

[CB..]

CB -

do you mind if I release a custom-tweaked version of your mod when I'm eventually happy with it? With all due credit of course.


Actually, I think it would be nice for someone to compile a collection of the different sensor 'flavors' for people to choose from at will :hmm:

go ahead--i will expect that credit of course -i had to fight quite hard to get folks to accept the concept--if i hadn't then i'm fairly sure no completed and workable mod would have resulted from this thread--and that's what my mod is a finished and workable mod that can be installed and work reliably right thro-out a normal campaign career--and that was the really difficult trick -- :yep: (include Col777 allso as it wouldn't have been possible without his work)


(i'm still smarting from the lack of credit for the merchant/leigh light concept!)

[CB..]

CB, you twisted, sick, masochistic modder!!

This mod is phenominal :rock: I tested it out in a quick engagement in a career campaign and have spent the past 1 1/2 just trying to shake off a lone River Class Escort! The only reason I lost it in the end is I broke down and used a decoy (I wanted to try it without gadgets first).

Frankly I was getting a little bored with the AI in the game. Dive to 100 - 150 meters, run silent, wait 15 - 20 minutes(game time), evade them, rinse and repeat.

I am going to have nightmares of that ASDIC: PING! PING! PING! PING!

I need to rethink the whole way I do things in this sim.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

and if there is anyone else I've missed that contributed to this (I see a lot of names running around in this thread) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! :up:

[CCIP]

(i'm still smarting from the lack of credit for the merchant/leigh light concept!)

:dead:

Right, I should've really put something in that readme. No self-serving intent there, though, just stupid forgetfulness.

Anyway, I'll hold mine off for now - and rather recommend that people try your version first. If they take well to it, and I hope they do, there may well be no need for them to be seeking tweaked versions like mine :)

Meanwhile, if others can post their files... Again, it'd be great to have a nice pack of different selections of sonar models. Or even, imagine using SHIII Commander to completely change the files from one patrol to another. That would sure make for some unpredictable play :hmm:

[CB..]

Right, I should've really put something in that readme. No self-serving intent there, though, just stupid forgetfulness.

Anyway, I'll hold mine off for now - and rather recommend that people try your version first. If they take well to it, and I hope they do, there may well be no need for them to be seeking tweaked versions like mine :)

Meanwhile, if others can post their files... Again, it'd be great to have a nice pack of different selections of sonar models. Or even, imagine using SHIII Commander to completely change the files from one patrol to another. That would sure make for some unpredictable play :hmm:

no worries--
aggree about the SH3 commander idea --kept considering that sort of approach my self---SH3 commander is quite an advanced bit of kit i'm guessing it could install different files according to the date etc--? it has to be said that would appeal to a fairly large proportion of players--and a lot could be done with the concept--even as far as re writing all the DD files (cfg sns eqp etc etc etc) to allow for a constant flow of minor changes-this could be done out side of commander but would be more fun easier and comprehensive if handled by an external program on launch--

i don't use commander personally i must admit tho-

[Marhkimov]

Maybe if you get JScones in on this, he might even be able to make SH3Cmdr randomize certain DD sonar/equipment values. It could be everything that you guys want... RANDOM!!!

Or maybe TT could come up with a specific DD tool? :hmm:

[CCIP]

It'd be great to have a randomizer, anyway.

Just imagine, you go out on patrol, and you don't know what's gonna hit you :know:

Put in about a dozen different variations of the AI Sensors and sim.cfg file combos, and you have a perfectly unstable DD behaviour where one patrol you might be harassed by enemies who can always hear you (but not too accurately) like in CBs sensor, another time you might be sneaking away from some guy who just won't let go of sonar lock :hmm:

[Nedlam]

I read back a few pages and saw that CB's mod is not compatable with RuB? How so? I'm almost positive all the sensor files included in the mod overwrote the files in RuB (I use the Generic Mod Enabler). What else is there that CB's mod missed?

[caspofungin]

shouldn't be an issue.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

shouldn't be an issue.

Roger that.

[Nedlam]

Well just to be sure I got rid of all the files from RuB that CB's tweaks messed with and hid them away. Then I loaded up CB's new AI_Sensors and Sim.cfg file.

The problem I was having was a lone DD was impossible to shake unless you used decoys. Even at 170 meters, silent running @ 2kts the DD would sail directly over me and drop its DC's no matter what kind of maneuvering I did. If was at all stop. The DC's would kill me outright.

CB, I know in a post earlier you said you where happy with this version because you got it to where you want it. I also remember reading you were more interested in convoy escorts working together over lone DD's attacking you. I'm just curious if you've experienced this behavior before from a lone warship with your mod.

BTW I still think this tweak is great. Frankly, I think I need to tone it down a bit. I'm just not that good! :)

[gdogghenrikson]

Maybe if you get JScones in on this, he might even be able to make SH3Cmdr randomize certain DD sonar/equipment values. It could be everything that you guys want... RANDOM!!!
:up:

[Redwine]

The problem I was having was a lone DD was impossible to shake unless you used decoys. Even at 170 meters, silent running @ 2kts the DD would sail directly over me and drop its DC's no matter what kind of maneuvering I did. If was at all stop. The DC's would kill me outright.

I obtain a wonderful silent running behavior in my files.

It is very hard for them to detect me at 3 and 2 knots, and when i adjust silent runnin at those speeds i am near to undetectable, except if i have the bad luck to be pinged.

I am not sure, wich part of the settings made the silent running so effective, may be you can discover it and made a blend with CB files, to have CB behaviour and a effective silent running.

Here my actual files, i still working on them.

http://rapidshare.de/files/9687110/DD_s_Detection_13a_Stage.zip.html

[CB..]

CB, I know in a post earlier you said you where happy with this version because you got it to where you want it. I also remember reading you were more interested in convoy escorts working together over lone DD's attacking you. I'm just curious if you've experienced this behavior before from a lone warship with your mod.



i don't use RUB- so can't speak for what happens there--but i haven't experienced any problems with lone DD's during normal campaign gameplay--

//if you want to tone down the DD's a little--
open your sim.cfg and in the

[Hydrophone] section

and increase the noise factor to say this

noise factor=1.5


but again as it's not usefull at all to extrapolate an entire series of alterations based on a lone DD encounter--especailly as this behaviour is not consistent --- what is the problem in using your decoy for example-? that's what they're designed for--i can't see the problem!!

you have to allow the DD's to do their job - other wise there's no game-- :hmm:

[Kpt-Wolf]

@CB..

Just one thing to say:
I tried yesterday your mod with an Hunt II Elite Destroyer in 1941 and he wasn´t able to find me when i was diving on 180 m with full speed !!!

Now I will test another Destroyer.


Wolf

[Marhkimov]

@CB..

Just one thing to say:
I tried yesterday your mod with an Hunt II Destroyer in 1941 and he wasn´t able to find me when i was diving on 180 m with full speed !!!

Now I will test another Destroyer.


Wolf
Good idea. The Hunt II DD in 1941 isn't a very good measure of sonar effectiveness, if you get what I mean... ;)

[Kpt-Wolf]

Tested it with an Evarts Destroyer in 1942 !
He wasnt able to ping me !!! Dropped Charges a few 100m away ! Couldnt find me when I was diving @50m with full speed !

Wolf


Edit:
I will trie now a Butler Destroyer in 1943.

[CB..]

Tested it with an Evarts Destroyer in 1942 !
He wasnt able to ping me !!! Dropped Charges a few 100m away ! Couldnt find me when I was diving @50m with full speed !

Wolf


Edit:
I will trie now a Butler Destroyer in 1943.

LOL do what you like -spend the next 150 pages i this thread testing on every destroyer in the game in every possible configuration date- and colour of underpants all it will prove is that testing against lone DD's is exactly as i've previously stated -- a complete waste of time-

i've no idea what your doing it for---if you get the results your after-- it will be boring-- if you don't you will complain that it isn't as you desire it to be--