I've done that and it didn't work... :roll:

edit - moved to more appropriate thread

What about increasing the damage delivered in that case? Right now, DW torps already explode under the keel, but do the same damage as if they hit the hull...

Its a rather nifty feature. I'm all for keeping it.

I do recall getting feedback from a torp that had already had its wire cut though. I'll have to look a little closer to see if that's the case. I love the feature anyhow.

Regretably, the game engine is coded to actually ignore the status of the wire when it comes to feedback, so UGST's fired from the external tubes will give feedback, but you cannot wireguide them. The same for torpedos that have had their wires cut.

I'm not hopeful about being able to change this unless SCS decides to fully support the feature in v1.02.

Re original question - yes the torp feedback feature adds much to the sim. I would like it to be retained.

In manual TMA it provides good clues vital in MP when a final kill solution can, and often is, compromised by own avoidance.

The difficulty with auto- TMA can be overcome.

One small criticism is that I get feedback tracks upon launch - no prob to drop but it shouldnt happen.
Just an initial feedback then nothing until enabled.

I have not finalised my assessment of the interaction between the torps and CMs. No explosions observed
now which is fine but I am a little uncertain about what I am seeing.
Taking active adcaps - they appear to ignore the active cm and 'burn' through but it would appear
that they are less efficient after coming in contact with the cms 'output' for a short time.

Now I am on the wagon and hope that I am not seeing things (again) but this behaviour is rather
like an air missile seeker being confused by chaff. :hmm: If this is the case that is very, very cool. :|\

Now shatter my illusions. :roll: :o :huh: :huh:

This is most likely a detection of ownship in the tubes (the same reason you will blow yourself up if you set the enable range to 0). I'm not sure if there is anything we can do to fix this specifically, but I will definately add it to the list of things that could be polished in the next version.


The torpedo behavior that happens after contact with the CM is not specifically part of the design intention and is a consequence of the way it was accomplished in the TorpHoming doctine. THAT having been said, torpedo guidence systems are very sophisticated and essentially no one who can talk about it knows just what happens when a torpedo goes through a CM and the input doesn't match the expectation of its programming. I would expect that if a missile acts spoofed after passing through chaff, then it is reasonable to expect a torpedo to display odd behavior after acquiring and passing through the decoy. After all, that is what decoys are designed to do.

To be honest, after watching many torpedos behave after passing through CMs in the testing of v2.0, this feature combined with the complex seeker cone moddling, the function of everything together felt VERY RIGHT, to me anyway.

I will start another poll about general torpedo behavior, I think. :hmm:

Thanks for your nice words, Bellman. I'm very happy you are enjoying our work. :D

Cheers,
David

I gotta tell ya, I just tried some SP with a 688I vs. Akula I. I didn't like what I saw.

On manual TMA, I fired one ADCAP at the target, range ~9 miles. The Akula immediately acclerated to flank, giving me DEMON data. :D He cleared datum east, so I nudged the torp 15 degrees that direction. the torp enabled around 8 miles downrange and immediately sent back sensor data on a contact. It did not acquire the contact; it continued snaking. This contact was clearly a CM, because it was where the sub started its evasion, and was on the wrong bearing. I preenabled my torp and let it run until it was past the CM.

Upon re-enabing, I had a new contact, and a new "conn, sonar, i have a new contact" message (which I did not get for the CM). Using Truth, I was unable to attribuite this contact to any object in the game. Also, the bearing line generated was much longer than the line for the CM.

It soon picked up another contact, which did not produce an audio message...another CM. Not long after, another nonexistant contact with audio alert was detected, and then, the torpedo acquired a target. About 10 seconds after steering towards this contact, the feedback on it appeared on screen. It was clearly moving, and was easy to tell it was the real contact. The weapon passed the 2nd CM without losing its lock and easily homed in on the Akula for the kill.

We have three problems here. One, it's buggy since apparently false contacts are being created. Two, the CMs, even though they were detected, did not lure the ADCAP away or jam its sensor. The second CM in particular was well-deployed and accompanied by manuever, but still did not lure or jam the ADCAP. Third, even had the lock been broken at some point, the feedback made it so obvious which contact was the real target that I don't believe any player could have escaped.

I'm not voting yet, though. I'll be back after some MP testing... :arrgh!:

Well, if CM effectiveness is set to some value, 50% or maybe 40% now I don't remember, this means that some of them will be uneffective and not affect torpedo at all.
The TorpHoming doctrine mod does only one thing - prevents torps from detonating on CMs. I can't imagine how it could have influence on how torpedo choses target and rejects CMs. This should work as before. Only when it locks on CM, instead of detonating should go through and soon start to search another target (sometimes immediately, sometimes there is some delay). My intention was to revert things to like they were in Sub Command.
So if you are evading, make sure that you are not in line with torpedo and CM and you will not be first thing it will see after coming through CM :).

The torpedos losing track sometimes and other things you have seen, can be connected only with fact that torpedo active seeker is much less sensitive now, but I have no idea if this have influence on target detection near CMs, if CM can "jam" the sensor or saturate it. Also I have no idea how torpedo choses it's target if there is more than one in it's field of view - if it choses strongest one, or closest one, or what...

About feedback tracks - the plague of feedback feature are the passive tracks. I tried but I can't do anything with them :-(. I just ignore them personally and look only on active tracks i.e. those with range.
The problem with passive tracks is dual. First - they appear even when torpedo is preenabled :-(. The sensor works and sends the track data. I tried to disable the sensor on the start, but it is disabled - and still sends data - just like UUV sensor sends data in preenabled state. Second problem is worse. I wanted to set passive sensor wash-out speed to value, that will prevent detecting any passive targets for 55kts active torpedo. So I set passive sensor wash-out speed to 50kts, from 50kts up the sensor is completly blocked by noise. And torpedo in fact can't home on passive tracks when at 55kts, but THIS DON'T PREVENT PASSIVE SENSOR FROM SENDING TRACKS DATA TO OWNSHIP ! :damn: :damn: :damn: The sensor completly blocked, but still send track data ! Tracks it should not detect at all. Arrrgh....
This is bug IMO. I suspect if we increased speed of UUV to 100kts, with washed-out sensor it would still detect passive contacts and show tracks on map. The only thing I can think of to avoid those damn passive tracks, would be to completly remove passive sensor form wire-guided torpedos.... but I rather don't like this idea... :damn:

About wire-guided torps impossible to evade with feedback - well I think this is what the wire and sensor data send back to ownship is for in real life - for human operator to take intervention if torpedo chosed wrong target, and guide it to the right one, for target to not stand a chance :)
Of course there are torpedos like UGST, where there is only one-way data link, only orders to torpedo but no sensor data back to ownship. So no feedback in fact. But we know that ADCAP does send it's contact data back to ownship so operator can discrimine if torpedo is homing on real moving target, or on CM ? And if he can, and can take control of the torpedo, how the target can possibly evade ? :)

Realism argument: If the sensor data was good enough that a human could discriminate perfectly, it could probably be done automatically with no need for feedback to the human operator.

Balance argument: What's the point of playing if torpedo evasion is impossible? I don't mind making it harder on the other guy, but a player's best response to a TIW is to abadon ship, there's a problem!

I'm hoping that the evasion tactics that worked against AI fired ADCAPS will work good enough against human-guided ones to evade the torpedo on the first pass. Preventing successful reattacks with empty CM tubes is going to be fun, though. I should be able to do some MP testing this weekend; I'll let you know if anyone gets away from an ADCAP and if so what percentage.

So, you say my "bogus contacts" were actually passive tracks which are reported even when the torp is pre-enabled; like a UUV. Does this mean a torpedo with passive guidance will give active feedback when enabled?

ML Snap. :yep:

Two other obseravtions -
1. CMs effect unclear :hmm:
2. Only successful spoof observed when an enabled active adcap preferred a passive cm to my sub
when both tracked by it under 1000 m.

The latter is the sole observed effect so far after appx 15 torp runs.

Only violent manouvering has saved my skin close-in by quitting the adcaps 'cone.' And that under test conditions
with 'Truth' on - I shudder to think how MP targets will survive. :roll:

We seem rather to have gone from one extreem to the other - there was nothing too wrong with cms as they were in SC/SCX -
spoofing was possible but now :huh: :o :P

The weapon effectiveness of the CM's was lowered from 50% to 40%.

If the general feel is that they are not effective enough now, then I will raise them back to 50%. This change is totally straightforward and should address the behavior.

I changed it to 40% based on a judgement call, it would seem that gameplay suggests it should be changed back in the next version.

Thanks for letting us know! :arrgh!:

To clarify the above - I refer to spoofing as the cm causing the adcap to prosecute the cms track rather than the subs.

I have not witnessed this escept as stated.

But as I have previously said the adcap does appear to be confused by the active cm for a short time
but will press on through and recommence the search very quickly.
This is good realism but may be too taxing in-game play. :hmm:

I will continue to test - redirecting adcaps against the launching sub in SP may not be the best testbed.
So forgive these 'initial' reactions - more may become apparent soon.

I'm pretty certain that raising the weapon effectiveness will produce more true locks on CMs for torpedos and a bit less of the confused jamming effect, which should make it a bit easier for the player to break a lock.

You ask - What's the point of playing if torpedo evasion is impossible?
I would ask - what's the point of plying if it IS possible ? :hmm: And maybe even easy ? Drop CM and you have 50% chance, drop second and you have next 50% chance ?
You do your best - detect target first, track him and compute his TMA, maneuver covertly and take perfect position to take a shot, at last you fire a perfect shot. And then the target evades it. !@#$% I would say. Even worse, he counter-fires on bearing and now you have troubles.
What's the point in detecting first then, what's the point in shooting first the ??? I always though, that in submarine warfare the way to not being sunk is not evading torpedos, but making sure that nobody will shoot at you in first place (by being not detected or by killing him first). And that it's the preferred way to go because first the modern torpedos are unlikely to be evaded, second the chances of surviving in case of hit are close to zero and then 100 people dies instantly. Risk is much more serious than for a fighter pilot being shoot at. It's like a air combat of passenger jets full of people :-/. If I detected first, tracked, shoot first and he evaded, then I would not go to war in first place but returned home
and worked in labs and test-ranges as long, as needed to get reliable torpedo that's not easy to being evaded, not more than 10% for close shot. And only then I would return to war in my sub. But it's personal opinion of course ;)

P.S. It's easy to check what caused change in CM effectiveness. All torpedos uses same doctrine and very similar sensor so effectiveness of all torps should be (unfortunately) the same. Only difference is the seeker range. So, it's easy to disable torps not detonating on CMs doctrine (just replace TorpHoming by standard one), it's easy to revert CM effectiveness back to 50%. Then the only difference between mod and standard DW would be sensor sensivity. That is easy to revert (for test) too.
Who wants such database/doctrine combinations to make tests ? But I think it's easy enaugh to make yourself for test purposes.
Interesting experiment would be also to set CM effectiveness to 100% and then see what's their real effectiveness. If the effectiveness will be really 100% or maybe lower ? :)