My GW watch crew is useless...

[Darkseed]

As is implied by the thread title my watch crew has the eyesight of half blind 80 year olds ever since installing Grey Wolves. I'm using the 16km option and in broad daylight with no fog and a mirror like surface they won't spot anything until it's as close as 5000 meters or less, at night it's even worse. I can see them myself perfectly waaaaay before my crew will spot them and this is with a maxed out green bar for the tower.

This pretty much makes a horizon of 16km pointless, and even with a 8km horizon the watch crew should still be able to spot them much much sooner when the weather is as perfect as it's been in my examples. This isn't a problem with high TC either since I never go any higher than 256x. I've also tried reinstalling GW with no luck, and my first install was on a fresh stock SH3.

It's not supposed to be this way I hope?

[LZ_Baker]

I had one or two times when I had time compression on and the contact report come up saying a ship was spotted, so I would go to the bridge to look and see a DD not 15 feet from my aft end..... :down:

[MothBalls]

What rank are they?

How much experience do the have?

Are any of them watch qualified?

Do you have a watch qualified officer up there with them?

How tired are they? (fatigue level)

What does the compartment strength read when your watch crew is on deck?


These are all important factors in how well they perform.

[Trygvasson]

What rank are they? How much experience do the have?

First patrol, with randomized crew, not veterans but not completely green either.

Are any of them watch qualified? Do you have a watch qualified officer up there with them?

One Watch Officer, one Watch petty officer.

How tired are they? (fatigue level)

None more than 25% fatigued.

What does the compartment strength read when your watch crew is on deck?

Maxed out green bar.

How does time compression affect the watch crew efficiency?

I discovered that destroyer by following the direction of the tracer bullets he was firing at me. I was running at flank speed, and he OVERTOOK me and got within small arms firing range before he got discovered. :o I got so scared I'm still shaking as I write about it.:eek:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

It's not supposed to be this way I hope?

No.

What other mods are you using?

[macstu23]

Apologies if this seems blatantly obvious but it's worth checking. Have you installed the 16km Atmophere mod using JSGME, and if so, are the folder paths correct within the JSGME 'MODS' folder ? e.g MODS/Atmosphere Mod 16k (light or dark)/data

When GW comes 'straight out the box' so to speak, the Atmosphere mods are in a sub folder and unless you're careful its easy to try installing them using JSGME with incorrect file paths...so you may think you have the mod installed, but dont. I'm only mentioning it because it almost happened to me.

[Darkseed]

As I already mentioned the compartment strength or green bar was maxed out. I had one watch officer and one petty officer with watch qualification, the rest regular sailors, all at almost no fatigue. I'm only on my second patrol but that doesn't explain their lousy performance. My only other mods installed are graphics mods such as krillers smaller sun, ail particles mod, moon reflections fix and uboat reflections fix. I do not use JSGME.

[MothBalls]

My only other mods installed are graphics mods such as krillers smaller sun, ail particles mod, moon reflections fix and uboat reflections fix. I do not use JSGME.

I would try removing these first. Just try a vanilla SH3 then TGW and see if that helps.

Any of those mods modify the scene.dat file?

[shegeek72]

My watch crew's ability to spot ships improved considerably over the vanilla version after I installed GW, even in dark nights. Though I usually have a watch officer up there now. How they can spot ships in the dark of night with distance to spare amazes me, but I'm not complaining. :yep:
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http://users4.ev1.net/%7Etaragem/sh3_u100.jpg

[Darkseed]

I would try removing these first. Just try a vanilla SH3 then TGW and see if that helps.

Any of those mods modify the scene.dat file?

Only the moon reflections mod, and that mod has a specific scene.dat for the 16k version of GW 1.1a. So, when is the watch crew in GW supposed to be able to spot ships under perfect conditions? Ideally it should be just as soon as the smoke is visible on the horizon, but it this possible without also making them supermen at night or during bad weather? Not sure which I would prefer, supermen or a bunch of Mr.Magoo's. As it is now I have to get on the bridge every hour or so and take a close look for myself, in the long run this can get a little tiresome.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

My watch crew's ability to spot ships improved considerably over the vanilla version after I installed GW, even in dark nights. Though I usually have a watch officer up there now. How they can spot ships in the dark of night with distance to spare amazes me, but I'm not complaining. :yep:
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http://users4.ev1.net/%7Etaragem/sh3_u100.jpg

The problem you refer to is the old stock SH3 "Vampire Night Vision Bug" where you can spot enemy ships at ungodly distances at night.

We will be saying more about our solution to this matter soon. :D

[Pants]

Yup instead of the vampire vision..we have given the watch crew night vision goggles...but taken the batteries out :rotfl:

Or there is an alternative mod for watch crew at night..it envolves a very LONG white cane.;)

[MothBalls]

Back to the original question, my best guess would be that one of the small mods you added after the GW mod overwrote something, sensors.cfg, an environment related file of some type or something like that. I'd try rolling back to the stock 1.4b and then TGW, test that.

The thing is, there are so many variables that all interact, it's real easy for one small seemingly benign change to cause problems like the one you're having.

That's why you really have to appreciate the supermods, so many changes and all tested to work together. It really is a lot of work to get it right.

[fxn]

I had the same problem, my watch crew couldn't even detect a ship at close ranges at times, so I did the following:

Go to your SilentHunterIII\data\Cfg directory.

Open the Sensors.cfg file.

Change the following line:

Visual uses crew efficiency=false

to:

Visual uses crew efficiency=true

Since I applied the abovementioned change I haven't had the problem where you suddenly got a message 'We are taking damage', only for you to discover a DD 20feet away making a run at your boat and you wondering what the hell the watch crew were doing up there to NOT spot it.

[Darkseed]

Back to the original question, my best guess would be that one of the small mods you added after the GW mod overwrote something, sensors.cfg, an environment related file of some type or something like that. I'd try rolling back to the stock 1.4b and then TGW, test that.

Well not sensors.cfg but I did notice just now that the uboatreflections fix replaces sensors.dat and sensors.val. Could that be the reason behind my blind watch crew?

[MothBalls]

Back to the original question, my best guess would be that one of the small mods you added after the GW mod overwrote something, sensors.cfg, an environment related file of some type or something like that. I'd try rolling back to the stock 1.4b and then TGW, test that.

Well not sensors.cfg but I did notice just now that the uboatreflections fix replaces sensors.dat and sensors.val. Could that be the reason behind my blind watch crew?

Hard to tell without seeing your files. I'm not 100% sure but I think the reflections fix was included in TGW, I'm sure someone can step in and correct me if I'm wrong.

Definitely sound like you should roll back to 1.4b and then TGW. If not, you could end up tweaking and testing for weeks without finding the issue. FXN's suggestion looks promising.

[Darkseed]

Well i'll reinstall after I get back to port, until then i'm gonna try fxn's suggestion and see what happens.