Hey I think I've got this one worked out too now.

LWAMI4 should have a genuine TIW message for underwater missile launches (I'm about 75% sure this is good to go).

Cheers,
David

Ok, as a followup, I have the Subrocs working perfectly, they give a nice TIW message when launched and still work perfectly (at least as far as I can tell).

The other missiles are proving to be a bit of a problem. I'll get back to you on this.

Cheers,
David

Missile Sound Issues
 

Hi, I know I am by no means any kind of expert on this kind of subject, but if you are talking about what 'sound effects' to give the launch of missiles other than subrocs, (ie in vertical launch tubes), wouldn't it be possible to produce a loud 'Boom' sound, with extra bass factored in, so it is audible from a distance?

Correct me if I'm wrong please, but I was lead to believe that a vertical launch tube (be they TASM, TLAM, or SLBM) produces such a noise due to the way that the missile is initially propelled from the tube...

Surely such a noise would cause 'reverberations' which would be easier to locate in BB sonar once audibly detected? Doesn't 'hull popping' noise also carry over some distance in the same way?

I apologise again if my ignorance has been a waste of your time...:oops:

It's a pity that there is so much problems with getting missiles to launch dummy torpedo... I didn't anticipated that (because I didn't try that :-/).
And in fact I'm still not sure it would be best solution... or maybe active ping is better ?
While ago I tried to set passive sonar as counter detect for torpedo seeker, and unfortunately the ping sound was there (it's not generated by active intercept (because nothing showed on it) but IS generated only in active intercept working cone... grrr weird as usually... And nothing on passive of course.

The active ping on launch is elegant "engineer" solution, but not elegant from a player point of view... active pings... from every missile... someone that didn't read the mod readme (and there are such people :-? question is do we care about them ? ;) unfortunately I think we should...) would be totally puzzled.

(Same for passive enable and active enable in new torpedo control mod. It happened to ME :o personnaly to forget about "first enable is passive enable" after not playing some time, and I was wondering where is the active ping and why torpedos are not seeing my sub... :oops: The important things that are totally different from stock DW have to be written big and bold on the beginning of the read me or better placed in separate "absolutely MUST-READ!!!!.txt" file.

edit: the torpedo speed is good indication of ADCAP state - active or passive. but you have to switch to nav screen to check that and would possibly not be good indicator for slower (TEST-71) torpedos...
maybe I should make in to simply switch to active after second enable, but first preenable for a moment (red V disappears in wepctrl screen) and then enable again in active mode (red V shows again) ? is it worth it ? anyone had problems knowing if second enable worked ? I personally had to click it few times in Playtest mod to enable it active, but maybe it's only for me?)

The pros are many - solution is simple, gives new track (with special designation? were you saying something like that?), and looong range ! The thing againstb it is only one - the ping sound...
For dummy torpedo and TIW message - the automatic message by crew similar like when detecting torpedo launch... more "natural" solution...
but only now I asked myself - what with sub launched ASMs and LAMs ?? Should they give Torpedo In The Water message to player ??? :o Subrocs are a threat similar to torpedo (and they drops it eventually) but ASMs and LAMs are not threat and have nothing to do with torpedos at all ! :-?
Second thing against it is lower range (only 20nm limit like for TIW messages, and missile launches are much louder events) and the fact that player on russian sub could have hard time sometimes to say if it was a torpedo launch or missile launch reported, as they have no waterfall and sonar history, if they don't see the missile spike in time they just don't know what it was...
And at last - it's complicated and very unelegant from "engineers" point of view.

So actually I really don't know... I used to think that TIW message would be better and more natural, but now have realised many arguments against this solution and simply don't know :hmm: , but honestly I'm closer to "active ping" solution... only with good description in a "must-read!!!.txt" file, among few other things.

Hm, a poll ? ;) With arguments for and against each solution clearly described ?

LW: With regards to your parenthetical, GNSF has made active intercept standard at least on a temporary basis, and it might already be permanent.

??

Could you clear this a little for me ? :oops:

The Global Naval Strike Force (GNSF), of which I am a member, had their standard ROE set so that players could not use active intercept unless all players agreed to it before hand.

I'm glad they have agreed to this change and I'll be back to full participation, especially in my role as RD-DW, once LWAMI4 is released.

Cheers,
David

I kind of feel like some engineer standing at the crossroads of two engineering approaches, needing to decide between two radically different solutions to the same problem. :cool:

I have one more ace up my sleeve. I'll let you know. :hmm:

Cheers,
David

I'm now 85% sure I've got this one by the stones.

The method I am going to do with is the TIW method, and I've made it work for non-subroc missiles, even without using a sensor (since missiles are simply ignoring tracks until they are done with their semi-ballistic launch).

The subroc fix is to simply add a dummy torpedo to their existing launchers and a firebest conditional with a runonce variable switch, and they will automatically fire the dummy on launch and continue on with their ballistic tradjectory and fire their second torpedo.

The non-subroc fix is to make all underwater launched missiles "snapshot" weapons in the database, thus giving them a Newtrack immediately at launch upon which to fire their dummy torpedo. So far, the fix to make sure the missiles don't misbehave in other ways is to simply make sure they otherwise ignore newtracks if they are not enabled... and since the snapshot track is only fed once to the missile, by the time it is enabled, it is old news, so it should simply be ignored by the missile. In limited testing, this appears to be the case.

The theory and design is now in place. Of course, I could alway run into some kind of unexpected problem, but the underlying mechanics is actually much more straight forward and elegant than I had first thought they'd be.

As a side note, the Harpoon is not going to be set to give a TIW, since the Mod already simulates a "stealth" launch from a canister, I figure this is a nice feature to add/retain on the missile.

Glad I got this one worked out, back to the torpedoes. :know:

1. Would it be possible to have the SUBROC or other missiles produce a "Missile launch detected" message instead of a TIW?
I personally am very strict here, rather no message than an unexact message.

2. What do you think about moving those automatic messages into the sonar autocrew modus only? (both TIW and "Missile launch detected") ? Or better, add a switch somewhere stating "automatic launch warnings ON/OFF" ?

This would IMO be a excellent MOD ;)

At all ??? They don't hear active sonobuoys, incoming active torps and active pings of other players ? Or pings of surface ships ? Are they also to not use active sonar at all ? But what with sonobuoys ?

P.S. wait a moment, you can't DISABLE active intercept... what means "not use it" ??? Ignore it ?? Are we talking about AI autocrew maybe ??


P.S.2. LW, while changing all missiles to "snapshot" weapons, please triple try the SS-N-27 ASM if it works at all after the change, the initial version of doctrine worked with "snapshot" weapon and I had problems, then switched to non-snapshot (as original) with a different way of doctrine working (tgt bearing for example)... Please think twice before doing that and check if it doesn't have side effects...

I'd like to disagree with this last point. The way I see it, with this mod in place, the TIW warning is essentially a quasi-sonar autocrew that reports launch (or splash) transients. The firing of the missile cansiter makes the same noise as a torp launch, so it should be included.

@Amizaur: we meant active intercept autocrew

I'm pretty sure I can get around this like this:

IF NEWTRACK AND Enabled THEN { FireBest (the missile second stage) } ELSEIF Newtrack AND NOT MissileTIW THEN { FireBest MissileTIW = 1 (the torpedo, I think I can control the firebest logic using database parameters reliably) } ENDIF

or some modification along similar lines to what is there (I haven't checked the 54E doctrine recently, but it has been on my mind that this missile will require a change to the standard solution).

One more thing I forgot to mention - if you make some missiles high flying and diving attack, not only the for FFG but even for Ticos and Burkes they will be almost impossible to hit... Long time ago I did a nice doctrine emulating real AS-4 flight and attack profiles, only to see that vertical part of intercept trajectory used by DW (go to target alt immediately) combined with intercept trajectory lag bug makes diving AS-4s almost impossible to hit by SM-2s... Miss distance was so big that even large blast radius didn't help and most of missiles missed by large distance... :-(

(edit: don't know if both intercept and terminalhome trajectories do the same (go to tgt alt right away), have you compared them ? maybe setting intercept instead of terminalhome would help? and switch to term only in last second? I don't know...)

So I dumped this doctrine and returned to standard one... High flying missiles would be normal targets while cruising high, but when diving they become almost impossible target in DW... :down: And AEGIS + SM-2 was designed just to counter such threats like Kitchens and Kingfishes so I don't think they should be hard targets and that few (sometimes even one!) big old Kitchens should make a threat for AEGIS ship... SS-N-27s ASM should, but not Kitchens - if not in quantity of two digit number at once...

About sonar bearing errors - I think first increase it by one for both sphere and towed (setting from 3 to 2) and we'll see what this change does to gameplay and TMA... It's minimum possible change and although momentary bearing errors are few degrees, on TMA station they are minimised to less than that. I hoped to find some info about sphere sonar bearing error (or bearing scatter) in Ehime Maru accident raport, but I found nothing... :( Anyone knows something about this and can say it ? Any link ?

And PLEASE tell me (on the priv if you need ;) ) how do you plan to make under-keel detonations ?? How they would work ? From all I know, under-keel det only result in smaller tgt damage, and has side effects too...
In SCX they were commanded just by specific ceiling setting, I understand that because of new "ceiling" definition you need a separate switch for it - to attack surface tgt, 0ft ceiling must be set and then only switch can force under-keel mode ? Or swich will enable surface as valid target even for negative ceiling, and ceiling depth would determine under-target pass depth (you set it larger for CV than for small craft) ?
Well, there is always a possibility that under-keel could be default... :) just find a depth at which even small patrol crraft would be detected and proximity fuse triggered ?

Hopefully we can do something about the missile flight profile.
Like I was saying, Fleet Command has now 3 to 4 different flight profile (one is actually a high diving one).
I know it is not the same game but may be.....

I really hope we can improve the above water side of it