They seem to snap them on at 2000m. 2160-something yards like clockwork. The light goes farther. So there are 2 things here, the visual effect, and the ability to turn on the light in the first place.

I think they turn them on when they know you're around but aren't sure where. Like when they spot torpedos or they saw you on the surface but you dove. In cases like that, they click on the halogens :hmm:.

I get them to notice me because I can see the signal lights going, and they constant helm.

They snap the lights on at 2000m, and they shoot longer than that first. 2000m is a cutoff, hit that, and boom, on go the lights.

I never noticed that but it makes sense (thinking back...) One exception though is when they spot torpedos. I fired from 3400 yards tonight and they lit up the searchlights when the torps were about 10 seconds from hitting even though I was still well over 3000 yards out...

Interestijng.

Considering I want to revamp the AI_visuals (multiple visuals) to allow night surface attacks, 2000m isn't horrible to work with.

Wonder what controller has the lighthouse just sweep with it. I should check the land-based one. It might well be unit type dependent.

tater

Have you tried set the cfg file:

Visual uses crew efficiency=false (make it true)?

When I messed with it in SH3, it seemed like Elites were not affevted by the change but veteran/competent had their visual range reduced by a small percentage. It was main thing I had to do to make night surface attacks work for me in SH3. I've read that these files are overwritten in SH4 by another layer of code.

In essence: If a unit has a 2000 yard range for a sensor, only the elite can reach the maximum. Veteran loses a small percentage of that and Competent loses a little more etc.

What I have tried (with little apparent success) is creating a unit with Elite Sonar, Competent Lookouts and Veteran Radar (or any variant of the 3). Not every ship was good (or bad) at every aspect of ASW. The problems I think I encountered working with these aspects was the AI seemed to get more confused and less agressive. Or simply lost :shifty:.

Surface attacks are on my list too. Merchants especially should have Competent lookouts wit an Elite crew IMO. There were exception but it was typically the Navy that had the best optics.

More notes: I can easily approach a convoy on the surface in SH4 as long as no enemy ships can get a broad visual aspect angle on my sub. As soon as I try to turn (flooded down, going slow/fast--doesn't matter) I am spotted. I've considered shortening AI Visual range and dropping the aspect angle to "give myself a chance" at escaping on the surface. My concern is that this will have too great of an impact during daylight hours.

;Visual.
Visual range factor=0.5 ;[>=0] Reduce?
Visual fog factor=1 ;[>=0]
Visual light factor=1 ;[>=0]
Visual waves factor=0.8 ;[>=0]
Visual speed factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual aspect=0.9 ;[>=0]
Visual enemy speed=0.2 ;[>=0] Increase?
Visual noise factor=0 ;[>=0]
Visual sensor height factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Visual already tracking modifier=600 ;[detection probability modifier], most accurate, once a contact is detected it will lose it very hard Reduce?
Visual decay time=250 ;[>0] already tracking bonus decay, in seconds
Visual uses crew efficiency=false True

Visual Height Factor=should not really be an issue. If anything, looking down at a submarine made it harder to see because it blended with the background of the sea better. The lower the lookout, the better the chance he could use the horizon to his advantage in spotting surfaced subs.

I want to work on some of these things myself but have really been concentrating on my current project (with a couple breaks for family and sanity :yep:). I'm reluctant to get side-tracked right now...

Remember that there are 2 cfgs. One is only for your sub (sensors.cfg), the other for AI ships (Sim.cfg).

As for height, that's not observer height, I believe that is the minimum height the sensor will see. So if it was 1m, a scope would be invisible below 1m (I think). In reality, while low might help for something right on the horizon, the horizon distance is a function of observer height.

My ultimate solution for visuals is to have many different visual sensors to pick from. So merchants can has whatever they are equipped with in their sns file. Any number of merchants can be BP-cloned to a new name, and given better or worse sensors, too, to mix things up.