16th Feb 1942. Just got in there and had a task force reported to me travelling ESE from the NE of the sea. It's within range so I thought I'd plot an intercept. Only thing is I can tell how far the TF has travelled along its own plot line because of the start and end points of the aircraft flights according to my SD radar.

Looks like a carrier force to me due to the number of flights. Now if only these planes would leave me alone long enough to be able to intercept...

All the ones I have, various subvets have sent them to me. They went to the Archives to get copies I think.

Sounds like a great section for the site;) . I couldn't get enough of the ones up on Warfish.

Can any one tell me who's ass you have to kiss to get air search radar, seems in SH4 the US navy was giving away surface seach but keeping airsearch out of the hands of us mere mortal sub captains!

I don't doubt your expertise in these matters. You certainly have more knowledge about this than I do. But was this true for just passing Midway? That's when they start flocking like a swarm of gnats.

And if so, where are they coming from? They always attack from the North. Is there a carrier up there? Has anyone gone looking for it or are these planes spawning out of mid air? I'm just wondering....

Thank you!

I just ran a mission out of Pearl.

After refuling at Marshal I wasent 20 miles from Marshal when I started getting hassled by dive bombers.

Where they were coming from is a total mystery unless there was a carrier nearby.

Even if the amount of air patrols stays the same, something has to be done about them coming stright at you. What I don't understand is this direct vectoring was not a problem in SH3 (as far as I remember, haven't played stock since it came out). Also, as stated before, the bomb loads are way overdone and the big patrol planes go WAY to fast. And the radar, when it acually wants to work, has dead zones.

As for not seeing planes in the Celebes Sea, I has the S-31/Porpoise there in early/mid 42 and I didn't see any aircraft either. They seem to be too busy flying to Midway...

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/3660/aircoverai1.jpg

;)

A few things to note about that map akdavis.


That is the totality of airbases throughout the war they wont be there all the time.

Secondly the radius of operations on each base is 2,800 Km or a return trip out and back of 5,600 Km.

The only bird that can fly over 5,600 Km is the H8K and that is Ferry range IE: Recon-Carrying no bombs.

Normal range for an H8K is 4,800 Km whilst overload range is 7,200 Km.

Normal range for an H6K is 4,650 Km whilst Ferry Range is 6,580 Km.

So on a normal out and back mission under 2,400 Km radius of operations is required IF the planes are to carry defensive and offensive loads.


A 2,400 Km radius circle provides 18,000,000 Sq Km.

If a H8K can sweep a 20 Km path as it flies it will cover 4,800 Km*20 Km = 96,000 Sq Km.

So for a 2,400 Km radius you will need 188 H8K aircraft to sweep 100% of the area.

As the distance increases from the base the POD (Probability Of Detection) drops off.


With an average POD of 50% for each aircraft you would require 376 8HK Aircraft to sweep 75% of the area (Due to the law of diminishing returns).

If each AC had a POD of 100% (impossible even with Radar) you would still need 188 H8K to cover the area.

That is more 8HK AC than was ever built - and we are only talking about one airbase.

Im thinking that they are spawned randomly near your sub to give the appearance of patrol aircraft but are in fact not actually flying a real search pattern. I read that the ship encounters in the game are like this too, they dont leave x harbor and sail to y harbor but are dynamically spawned near your sub to give the illusion of this occurring.

Could be wrong of course.

To my knowledge your 100% correct - The computer rolls a probability of a plane finding you based on various parameters then it spawns just outside visual range and attacks.

The aircraft only has two speeds maximum and minimum.

Im guessing alot of H8K and H6K would have been used in a patrol role carrying no bombs but mainly looking for task forces rather than subs - If they pinpointed a sub they would have then called in an attack.

Will have to read up a little more on that one.

In SH4 EVERY Aircraft if it see's you attacks - no recon - patrol AC at all.

i was under the impression that SH3 had ships/convoys moving along assigned waypoints. im a bit shocked that they would remove this feature in in SH4. so we dont really have a dynamic or random campaign just an illusion of one?

the same goes for aircraft i guess

i got that problem pretty bad, and the depth wasn't enough to go effectivly to periscope depth.

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/3...4144859ln6.png

saw every aircraft in the sky exploding on first contact with jap AA in all the mission scenario's, its like every AC in the game is sugar coated in kerosene.

AA guns are way to accurate under A.I control or just to damn powerful.

aircraft in this game are just modelled so amateurish and not a single improvment to be seen over Sh3.:down:

My first two careers with only one patrol for each one not even finished were lost due to aircraft:88)

I'm pretty sure SH3 works the same way. At the end of the day, I don't think it makes much difference with the limited range of a Sub in such a huge area. It'd be a waste of resources having the CPU keep track of all the various boats that you'll probably never encounter.

My bad. I have no idea what Radar the Japanese did or didn't have, tbh. It was just a guess. The patrol I'm in is in late '43 early '44, so maybe I'm just unlucky and catching all of the planes who's Radar did work?!

Knowing this game, the Japanese have invented a plane that is magnetically "attracted" to subs, even ones over 800nm from their home base :) They don't even have to fly it to you; it flies itself...

Is that true about the bomb loadouts being all wrong? Modders?!

Like the other thread said, just modify your AIRSTRIKE file in that data cfg folder...

i lowered the values and have found the game much more enjoyable. on any given patrol, i may encounter MAYBE 4-5 airplanes. It was just detracting from enjoying the game before. Not having planes bugging me all the time allowed me to think about other stuff. The planes were just competely out of hand until i modified the file. Now much quieter skys....

:up:

I need to clean it up after testing and release it, but all the bomb loads are grossly wrong. The H6K and H8K would likely carry a bomb load for patrol work, though perhaps not a full load. I should look into that. The aircraft bomb loads don;t need to be representative of the type in general, they really need to represent what might be seen by a sub. The Zeros should have no bombs at all, and frankly they should also be unable to radio a report in since they frequently removed their radios because they were so awful.

The ranges are too long for operational use in most cases, and the speeds...

That is interesting, do you know that the plane move at either the min or max speed? Seems like the solution would be to make the min speed ~cruising speed and the max speed ~ cruising speed.

The airattack also needs to be reduced as suggested. What the game really needs is a detection chance and range for the planes based on their alt, the sub's state (surfaced, periscope depth scope up, submerged), time of day, sea state, and the sub's speed. As suggested, the planes always attack, meaning you are always spotted. I think a work around is to set the chances of aircraft such that you only see as many as would actually have spotted you in RL. So if only 1 in 5 planes that flies over would spot a sub on the surface on average, then the aircraft attacks should be reduced 5 fold.

Yes, subs dove to avoid aircraft sometimes many times a day, but had they stayed on the surface we don't know what % would have been detected---the RL crews were better safe than sorry and dove.

Planes Near Midway