Yep, it's one of the cool things the devs added to 1.5: the ability to upgrade the sonar equipment. Early on in the war, you will have to rely heavily on your bridge watch to spot targets, because sonar doesn't track that far, and the early SJ radar has a max range of just over 7 miles. Come ~September 1943, though, and things start to really improve. JP-1 sonar and SJ-1 comes online, the problems with the Mark 14 get fixed, and the wakeless Mark 18 is introduced as well (albeit in very small numbers at first).

S boat fans...well, let me just say, get used to being the red-headed stepchildren of the fleet. No JP sonar, no SJ radar for the S-18s until November 1942 (and no SD radar ever), and SJ and SD radar for the S-42s starting only in March 1943.

Another nice little feature we did was make the Mark 10 cost 100 renown points each for the fleet boats. We wanted to mimic the reality of fleet boats taking Mark 10s on patrol but at the same time depict how this wasn't a common occurance. However, the biggest issue with this was trying to find a solution to a player just skirting around the Mark 14's problems by just loading up on Mark 10s each and every patrol. This solution still allows the player to load up the Mark 10 on the fleet boats but at a high cost. Of course, for the S boats they will remain free.

This is excellent!! I can't wait for this new RFB!

I posted an article under the New Torpedoes thread about upgrading to Torpex warheads on the Mk 14 here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...=132982&page=2 will there be any consideration for purchasing upgraded MK 14's with Torpex warheads as opposed to the standard TNT type? Although the MK 14 may be rather unreliable at first, having the option to get one with a harder hitting warhead may compensate a bit. :D

It looks like the RFB team has been putting in overtime!:) I'm really looking forward to the release, it sounds like a lot of improvements have been made. :yep:

Poor buggers...they did do some things! I will be starting in the S when the time comes:D

Sounds great, I suppose I'll have to knuckle under and shell out the 10 bucks for 1.5 soon :hmm:

Done and done, bring on RFB for 1.5 :()1:

This is sounding really good. Are we talking days or weeks for the release if you dont mind me asking? :ping: The coming soon is a big tease.

I am looking forward to this release almost as much as the original release of the sim.
Sounds like it will make a lot of interesting improvements.

Respectfully Submitted;
CDR Resser

Thanks for the link. I'll have to see if it's possible to have a Mark 14 with slightly less power early on in the war. The Mark 10 is already set up to be less powerful than the Mark 14.

No problem LukeFF, glad I could contribute to this mod in some very small way :D

Not a problem. I never even knew there was a version of the Mark 14 without Torpex, lol. Nonetheless, there will be a power adjustment to the torpedoes in this next release. Knowing that Torpex is 50% more powerful than TNT has allowed me to adjust the Mark 10 and the other torpedoes (other than the Mark 14/23) to more realistic levels. It will be one more factor to weigh in when deciding if to load up on Mark 10s instead of Mark 14s: does one take the more powerful but more flawed torpedo or the one that is less powerful, slower and shorter-ranged but more reliable?

That sounds Great LukeFF, I'm assuming that other later torpedoes used during the war like the Mk 18 or Mk23 used only Torpex warheads though?

Also, found some info on Periscopes, quoted from this source from the USS Bergall SS-320

http://www.bergall.org/320/patrol/torpedo.html




Interesting that the two periscopes have slightly different heights if its true, it would allow us to have both scopes up, particularly the attack scope up without having the observation periscope get in the way since it's claimed to stand 5' higher.

Also, from this same submarine is detail on the 5" guns here:

http://www.bergall.org/320/patrol/deckguns.html claiming only 75 rounds among other interesting facts from the men who served on her during the war.

Any chance we could get those Mk 28 homing torpedoes on the fleet boats in 1945?

Keltos created a Mk. 28 Mod and they are available in mid/late 1944.

I wish we had the ST radar on the observation scope. Would be nice to get radar range with only the scope popping out of the water.

Just surface a bit.

Can you actually get similarly sized guns in the game? And wow how a 65-pound shell must hurt if it drops on you.:dead:

5" guns are available later in the war/game. The old V-class boats, like Narwhal, had two 6" deck guns.

One can certainly mod the extension height of the periscopes. I'll look into doing this.

That's great to hear, I'm visiting the USS Requin (SS 481) tomorrow, will check with them on periscope height as well.

The tour guides on the Requin aren't necessarily as smart as some of them think they are (from first hand experience). Of course, that was 10 years ago.

lol, I know Sarsfield. I called the science center and asked if we'd get unrestricted access and they told me they no longer have tour guides there. They said I could go into the conning tower and look through the periscopes myself if I wanted to. :D

I last went there as a kid in 1990 with the tour guides, and restricions on where we could go so it'll be interesting to see what has changed, and now that I'm older I have a better appreciation for what I'm looking at.

With my current setup - ROW+RSRD+RFB they do have different hights. The observation scobe allways gets washed over by small waves and the attack does not. And if i run them both all up the attack scope is not obstructed by the obs. as is the case the opposite way....

BUT!!! in order to see this you would need my cameras.dat mod.......:|\\

Point is that they DO rise to different altitudes, but the clip distance prevents your observationsscope from having an obstructed view by a fully raised attack scope...