That's what I thought. Maybe my salvo is not as tight as it should be. I'll try a few more times. The thing is, the Tico fires when the Tico wants to. Me as the FFG skipper have no control over that. And Tico usually fires 6 Harpoons in a salvo. Because it takes me more than 2 minutes to launch all 4 of mine, and I like to set waypoints to make them arrive as close to the same time as possible, this can be a challenge. I'm just thinking that the SA-N-7's may be too effective then they may be in real life. At the very least, for gameplay's sake, I think they should be toned down bit.

Personally I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that the radar profile of certain missiles is way too high... a little trigonometry tells me that the frontal surface area of a missile approaching a warship at 10nm exposed to the warships radar emitters is damn small... combine that with the fact that small ASM missiles are made with radar absorbing materials and the fact the missile is operating against the backdrop of the WHOLE ocean tells me that while the incoming ship may know that an active vampire is coming at them, it is a bit unlikely at the ships Fire Control radars would be able to track the missile until it is MUCH closer, unless the vampire were moving fast (giving a large doppler) or had a higher flight profile (so it was over the horizon level vis-a-vis the radar emitter).

On top of that the CIWS is probably over powered...

I'd like to hear people's opinions, like I said, I have it on my list to do radar tweaks, so right now I'm thinking of: 1) lowering the radar profile of slower missiles with a lower flight profile and perhaps lowering the Fire Control radar profile of the missiles even further (yes the parameters for Search and Fire Control radar detectability can be adjusted separately) 2) lowering the weapon effectiveness of the CIWS bullets ( :) ).

Cheers,
David

Wasn't the Harpoon said to have a 'pop up' manuever prior to it's attack so that it would hit the said ship from a angle pointing down on it? I remember in the old RSR game the graphics showing this manuever.

Well, yes, this really gets at the cremaster of this whole mechanic.

I just sank a OHP and a Sov. The Udaloy appears to be out of reach, which is proper, as it is a modern AEGIS equivalent with VLS and the very capable SM-9.

However, I absolutely believe that the most modern American ASM missile should be able to sink the OHP with seven missiles or so.

The answer here is to do exactly what I mentioned above, and this is a really nice small surgery rather than going through and rescaling the whole radar system which would take weeks. So I'm going to lower the Search radar profile of slower missiles and the FC radar profile of the missiles even further, I am then going to tweak the CIWS effectiveness down. These changes together should make these missiles appropriately effective.

Currently, the missile vs. anti-missile system is tilted towards very fast missiles, since the only parameter that determines success for the shooter is how many missiles can close the effective range of the countermeasures at the same time, with detection being essentially equal between all missiles.

So, now the only question is how far to go? Well, I'm going to tweak it so that the P-3 can KO the FFG about 65% of the time. Why? Sounds right to me. (this is an invitation for your opinions...)

Cheers,
David

I've heard... however, this sort of thing is rolled into the DW engine (damage calc. is straightforward), and feeding weapons commands after they have started homing is very likely to cause malfunction.

Cheers,
David

The OHP is a bit of an oddity. In RL, we know that 2 missiles is enough to incapacitate one in terms of hits--and that's assuming one doesn't explode IIRC. As for its defenses, we don't know how well the CIWS does... but the SM-1 does not have anti-missile capability. It's a safe bet that it won't survive a 7 missile salvo. But, when you fictitiously add an SM-2 to that.... it gets iffy. When you smoked yours, did the CIWS engage? There is also a consistent problem with the AI OHP--it only guides one missile at a time, even though it has two independently targetable FCRs. With the SM-2, and the ability to guide two at a time, I'd put the OHP's survivability somewhere between the Gauntlet-CIWS and Gadfly-CIWS combo.

Now, if you're asking for a specific survival % for the OHP vs. 7 of these...what concern is driving the target %? If it's realism, it should be 0--but since the OHP is unrealisticly capable at AAW in DW, that's going to screw everyone else. But if I wanted to set a %age for other ships... I'd probably put the Neustrashimmy (Gauntlet and SA-19/gun combo) around 90%+ (0-2 hits), the Udaloy around 90% (more hits: 1-3, but higher damage capacity), the Sov around 66% (1-4 hits), and laugh at the fate of the Krivak, Grisha, et. al (2+ hits). Based on that, I'd throw the DW OHP in the 66-75% range. If the FCR problem is not fixed, then I'd put the AI DW OHP lower...in the 40-50% range (But a player controlled OHP should still be up around 66-75%).

I definitely like the direction you're looking in with the search and FC radar profiles, and especially that you're keeping the altitude and doppler in mind. I think the most significant problem DW has in this regard is that the missiles are too easily detected and engaged. Making that phase a bit tougher should go a long way.

For the most part, the hit % of most missiles fired seems pretty good. The exception is the Gauntlet, which I'm observing at 93% or better. I disagree with your comparison of the Udaloy to the AEGIS-equipped ship, as the Udaloy is an ASW platform. The Russian analogue to the AEGIS/SM-2 combo is the SA-N-6 Grumble, not the Gauntlet. And even so, the AEGIS/SM-2 combo is only about 80% effective in DW IIRC. So I'd turn down the Gauntlet to a max 80%, but not much lower. The Gauntlet DOES use a phased arrary though, so I would not reduce its detection/engagement range significantly, if at all.

As for the CIWS...I think it's too good, but out of sympathy for human players driving the "Hellen Keller class", I only recommend a slight tweak. But as it stands now, that thing makes "shooting a bullet with a bullet" a bit too easy. My "gut feeling" is that a kill rate of more than 1 missile per second is too good.

Well, it's a mute point now.

I don't have the database conversion tool now, so now that everyone (including me) has upgraded to the 1.04 patch, LWAMI is completely shelved until Ludger or jsteed code a new editor, which shouldn't be TOO long.

Cheers,
David

After waiting sooooooooo long for the 1.04 patch (and what great improvements it has :cool: ) we now have to wait (i hope not too long) for the definitive dw mod.
It seems that waiting is fundamental to the world of Dangerous Waters. :rotfl:

"mute point". hehe.

Oh, just so you know, I was getting those numbers based off of the hit % of the missiles, SAM salvo size, an assumption that the CIWS would usually get 2, and an assumption that the radar tweaks would result in one SAM salvo being forgone for most ships.

I've just received a version of DWedit from Ludger that can convert 1.03 database to 1.04 and edit 1.04 databases, which means we're back in business.

Expect LWAMI 3.04, which will be fully compatible with DW 1.04 within the next 36 hours.

Cheers,
David

Excellent news. Things seem to be coming together nicely. And I thank you for your efforts.

:D David I second SD - this is fantastic news ! :|\\ Thanks for all you have done. :ping:

LW is a pimp:rock:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

I hope you will encourage Ludger to make it available to the rest of us...