They came to a halt cause a bug told them to do that just so you could have a
turkey shoot. Load 1.3 and see how easy that is now. With 1.3, they take off
in different directions zigging and zagging. Also the escorts dont stop and let
you shoot them either...

JIM

Just to add my twopenneth.
I remember in SHII when it first came out the same problem occurred then. It was impossible to get anywhere near a convoy without the DD's latching on to you. When playing SHIV I've noticed on numerous occassions this same problem occurring. From all the books I have read if a sub is on the surface at night with no moon it is very difficult to detect until it makes it's attack.
Eventually the dev boys for SHII brought out a patch which gave more realism to the actual conditions regarding detection.
Peter

I will disagree about the 90 degreen thing being a 'hard shot' as it provides the largest angular target possible and the shortest torpedo run distance and the greatest percision of knowing where the target is angularly. The chance for hitting over targets in the case of a miss I don't know either way.

My complaint is that aspect should have DIDDLY to do with getting detected by passive hydrophones. Why would the broadside of a sub sound any different than the front? I understand the difference in aspect when active sonar is concerned, but active sonar is not being used to detect me.

I am also incredulous on if a DD would realistically be able to detect a subarmine that was dark as shadow no matter how close overhead it got, especially while running at 9 kts.

The 2 oclock entry is of course very good advice, less attainable when attacking a 21 kt task force of course because of the increase in the number of DDs and the higher reletive speed.

Your not thinking advanced enough. It is a hard shot on the 2nd or 3rd salvo if you intent to shoot one, and time them so they all hit approximatly the same time. First salvo should always be at slow speed setting. Your 2nd salvo at fast speed. Usually you have about 30 seconds to set up your 2nd salvo after letting loose the first. Timing is important, you want them hitting all around the same time. If theres a large time gap on the 2nd salvo end of run, your target will have shifted position, having been warned by the first salvo, and the shots are wasted.

Aspect doesnt have a thing to do with passive detection. I don't know where you get this idea. You sound like the same guy from the official forums, and i said the same thign there, aspect on passive hydrophones does not get you detected. What you seem to have trouble accepting is how the game functions mechanically. If you think you can do better then the guys who made SH3 and SH4, please, by all means, apply for a job at ubisoft and deliver us a sim that performs historically accurate in code, as opposed to being accurate in appearance to the user.

At any rate, you can beleive what you want, ive said time and time again how to avoid detection and how to attack convoys. Instead all i hear is.. "but .. but... but.. but... ", and a whole lot of whining. This is how the game is, you either have the aptitude to learn it, or you do not. Whining about it, and complaning about how doubutful you are about the game based on your own assumptions, isn't going to change a damn thing.

I detect a rather large chipoid in the vicinity of your shoulder region.

You're correct I'm not thinking that advanced about my attacks in terms of two sync'd ToT salvos and it actually sounds like a fun thing to try. Although ships weighing what they do and my inability to shift fires rapidly (mainly due to visual lag) means I haven't found an overwhelming justification for such a practice. I'm curious what kind of angle reletive to abeam you mean. 10 deg? 30deg? 50deg? Do you come to PD on these runs or not? I've tried a few 99' deep attacks and they work alright except I rarely know just when to take that first (and often only) ping before launch for last chance range data.

My notion that aspect has anything to do with passive sonar detection is strictly based off of experiencial data. I sit at 380' with SR and 0 kts with my beam to the enemy... I'm detected. I load up the same save game and turn so I'm parallel with the convoy... not detected. I understand that isn't conclusive (not like going through the sensor game files like you have) but you can see why I arrived at my notion. All I have is the knowlege I gain and my brain to sort through it, no more no less.

I'm so phobic of any engine usage with DDs around because since I can hear a merchant 20nm away surely they can hear me 1nm away no matter what.

Now I'm curious how this "2 oclock" approach really works. I've used it in SH3 (namely the MP missions since you're kinda pressed for time) a lot. Attacking a 9 kt target at 2 kts only gives you a 2/9*60 = 13 degree entry window from straight ahead. And that assumes you're using all of those 2 kts exactly perpendicular to the convoy's path.

With TM1.5 my convoy skills have gotten extremely rusty as I generally only find:

1. 2 merchie buddies
2. sampans
3. task forces (which I have no idea how to attack safely which I guess is the point)

I've just learned how this works myself so I could be wrong, but I think you're mistaken about the detection method.

You aren't being detected passively.

The way the GAME works, if I understand correctly, is that if you present the escort with a good target for its ACTIVE sensors then it will choose to use those sensors to detect you. In real life, unless an escort was just steaming along pinging away randomly, it would be using passive sensors such as hydrophones and lookouts to look for submarines or evidence of submarines. Upon either hearing or seeing something, (such as hearing the sub or seeing a torpedo wake or periscope, etc) it would switch to active and THEN, if you were within the sonar cone and presenting the right angle, it would detect you.

But in the game, if you just happen to be in the sonar cone and presenting a favorable angle for detection and stay there for however long then the escort will magically know to use its active sensors and find you. In other words, if you would have been detected by active sonar if the escort was using it, then the game decides that that is a great moment to use it.

You aren't being detected passively and then attacked. You're being detected actively because you are in a position that meets the game's criteria for active detection, which causes the AI to magically activate it's sonar find you.

To avoid this, you simply do not position your boat in a way that IF the AI were to be using active sonar it would detect you. That way the AI never says to itself "hey, there's a boat there that I can't hear but if I start pinging I'll get him right away." You can still be detected passively by making too much noise.

It was my understanding (due to reading a few other threads) that SH4 isn't programmed as you might think with regards to enemy AI and active/passive sonar. In my head, if I was setting SH4 up, I'd have the escorts concentrate on passive sonar, all the time... and use active sonar if/when they suspect that a sub is in a given area. Use active to pinpoint, etc.

Somebody in one of those other threads suggested that the above design is not what SH4 does... if you're within the cone of active sonar, at the right aspect, then the escort pings. Regardless of whether we think the escort should be pinging at that particular moment or not.

At that point, since you're in the cone and with your beam to the enemy, he's able to locate you. Rotate off the beam, and he can't... 'cause the game is saying he can't find you if he did ping.

That's a better way to phrase SH4's method, actually... if your sub is in such a position that if the escort could locate you via ping, then he will. If not, then the escort has to rely on the passive to locate you.

This is probably all complicated by the skill of the escort, too... I've had escorts that have detected me in almost unbelievable situations :shifty:, and others that should've pounced on me like a cat on a mouse, but continued by, oblivious. :doh:

Somebody feel free to tell me I'm wrong, 'cause I'd love to hear it... I'm tired of mentally picturing sonar ranges & aspects in my head on convoy approaches, wondering whether I'm going to blunder in someone's active sonar cone. :huh:

Edit: amurph182, you type too quickly for me ;)

Well when I finish this career and to the reinstall with the 1.3 patch and the latest edition of TM then I look forward to the challenge.

It should not be much longer, it's the Middle of Feb 1945 right now in my current running career.

That explains a lot of absolutely ridiculous detections.

indeed. And the thing of it is that it doesn't seem to make sense for doing it that way. As Ducimus points out, an AI DD can only use one sensor at a time which would make it pretty easy to say "use passive unless you have a contact, then use active". What I keep coming up with is that the devs thought it too easy to evade passive detection, or perhaps the DD's don't use active correctly after making a passive detection.

Another thought I had is that the game doesn't actually model active sonar but instead just throws some dice against certain numbers, such as aspect angle, sonar cone dimensions, etc, to determine if you are detected or not and it doesn't matter which system they are using at the time. But I am neither a programmer nor an experienced modder of this game so I'm just talking out my butt on that one.

The implentation of how active sonar works, i beleive was always done in the way it was done, to make up for short comings.

As i understand, real sonar, projects itself as narrow 15degree flashlight beam, sweeping from side to side. Sonar in these games does not do that. It does not sweep from side to side, it is afixed onto the front end of the escort like a floodlight.

Now i've seen efforts to make the beams geometry more realistic (IE reduce the beam to 15 degrees wide) and what happends is the AI can't detect anything. So i think what happened when the game was designed, was the need to enlarge the sonar beam, and then add variables to it that say, "yea, or nay" on being detected. In code, while it doesnt work like a real sonar, but i'd argue that in play, the effects on player behavior to avoid detection (or escape after having been detected) are nearly the same. In short, it doesnt recreate sonar, it emulates it. If it wasn't for some joker like me who's spent the last 3 years observing, analyzing, and tweaking the AI' sensors, i honestly don't think people would know any better.



Late night, and tinnitus occasionaly kicking my ass, makes for being really damn cranky.

Do you thing the amount of zig zagging the DD do cover that missing aspect of actually sweeping? Just wondering.

Firstly, the given explanation of "DDs decide to ping if you happen to be there" satisfies both my experience while playing and Ducimus's knowlege of the game sensor files. It's sort of a "I told you so" and sort of not. I find it unfortunate when stealth options are lacking like this... if in fact this is the case.

The only test I could think of is modding a sub with exactly 0 sound signature and placing him in front of a DD and watching if the DD spots him simply due to how strong his sonar ping return would be if the DD happened to ping, with no other manner of detection possible. A SR sub could never be 100% silent with some vibration or sound being emmitted. Perhaps there is a minimum sound signature of the sub modelled in the game, perhaps the hydrophones on the DD can detect impossibly faint sound signatures (unrealistically so). Don't know. That would deserve yet another test, trying to get detected by a DD that did not have active sonar installed.

I don't understand exactly why 15deg window spotlight sonar wouldn't work modelled on DDs. If you have a -- contact on the hydrophones and you hit the "ping" button you instantly get a contact report "Merchant, closing, bearing xxx, long range!" This is basically narrow beam detection of a sweeping device. It would make it take longer for a DD to get an initial fix on you "Is here over there, nope, there, nope" by a few seconds or even minutes. Also shaking a DD would be easier as he'd have to ping your bearing to find you and being 90 degrees off would mean he'd have to search a bit. I won't argue with the experiences of those trying to tweak the AI sensors that this is hard/impossible to get working, but just pontificating for no real reason. Like the Beach Boys song, wouldn't it be nice.

You forget, I'm the most irritating person on the planet. :lol: No problem whatsoever.

I have to be honest, these discussions sort of wear me out. I think im going to stop participating in them, and just let people think what they want. You know, I didn't build the thing, i just have a pretty good idea on how it works. What frustrates me is when i say exactly how to not get detected, and yet people keep saying things like "its impossible"! Each time i thnk to myself, "BS".

I can approach almost any convoy, get a shot off, and not be detected. Infact, very rarely am i detected before my torepdos hit. Even with a destroyer coming straight at me, i know how to position myself so my chances of being detected are appreciably low. So i have a very hard time understanding why others find the AI so insurmountable.


One could try, but im skeptical. I have a nagging that with all things considered, at best they'd be able to intially detect you, and the rest of the time you won't hear a single ping. I think they'd just mill about until the lost contact time has expired and go away.

Ducimus is right. Besides he learnt these lessons the hard way from SH3 and has appiled it to SH4.

And TM 1.4 is the advanced version of hide and seek. ;) Along with the other included parts to TM 1.4. It's not just eyecandy you know.

Never ever give your enemy your broadside... meet him headon and as slow as you can, or stopped. And always make sure Silent Running is the norm when meeting up with them. And only use your 'scope when you need to. The enemy wears glasses and can see your 'scope just fine when the bloody thing is sticking out of the water... it's a dam calling card saying "Here I am, come get me !"