SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Sonarman not automatically detecting sounds

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- Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/forumdisplay.php?f=202)

- - Sonarman not automatically detecting sounds (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=222918)

Barkerov

11-26-15 01:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fitzcarraldo (Post 2361519)

You can game the RSRDC system two or three campaigns. After that you know all about Japanese traffic.

Regards.

Fitzcarraldo :salute:

And that's when I will change to another mod!

xXNightEagleXx

11-26-15 05:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TorpX (Post 2361023)

[INDENT] Do you mean he really can't hear anything, or that he doesn't hear well?

Many complain that their soundman is 'deaf', but it turns out he hears as well as he should (not too well).

The US sound gear, in the early part of the war could not reliably detect ships beyond maybe 7,000 yds. Since you can normally see much farther than this, you might think something's wrong. People who are used to SH3, where their German gear can pick up Allied convoys from over the horizon, think this is a bug, but it is not.

Also, you should note, the game only uses one sensor at a time. If you are looking at a ship through the scope, your sound man will not report it. AFAIK, mods can't fix this.

These sound issues are old, and well known. They really have nothing to do with anyone's mods. They are a consequence of the games simplistic sound/sensor mechanics.

I will just describe this situation: being at 50 feet, deep 0kn and enemy no more than 5000yd and still doesn't report any contact, unless i manually find him with the hydrophone (very very loud sound). Just then the sonarman proceeds with the first contact report like a big troll.

Barkerov

11-26-15 05:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xXNightEagleXx (Post 2361575)

I am not convinced its a bug. What is the surface weather like? More importantly what happens as you get closer?

also after you get him to call out the contact can he follow it?

xXNightEagleXx

11-26-15 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barkerov (Post 2361576)

I am not convinced its a bug. What is the surface weather like? More importantly what happens as you get closer?

also after you get him to call out the contact can he follow it?

-clear sky
-nothing until very close
-yes, by then it follows him

xXNightEagleXx

11-26-15 07:52 AM

Ok, i've just reinstalled everything and applied only rfb 2.0 + patch.....it seems to work properly now.

In order to avoid any wrong interpretation, how the AI hydrophone works in rfb 2.0, what is its limit?

UPDATE: definitely it is working better now, just for information i was struggling to get the contact detection even on the tutorial attack torpedo.

Barkerov

11-26-15 05:43 PM

If I do the listening I have found I can hear (by hear I mean see a green light) ships up to 20nm.

If the sonarman does the listening I am not exactly sure what the distance is.
It will depend on his sensor skill though.

TorpX

11-26-15 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xXNightEagleXx (Post 2361575)

I won't pretend to know all the ins and outs of the game here, but know that the games sound mechanics are poor. Personally, I stopped expecting much in this department when I noticed I could hear ships on the other side of an island.

You didn't say whether your scope was up or not.

As I said before, the game is hard-wired to use only one sensor at a time. I get very few sound contacts, since I am patrolling with my periscope up. The game uses the best sensor to determine detection, and that is the scope, usually. I could lower my scope and get more sound contacts, but it would hardly be worth it. The one sensor mechanic applies to both us and them, btw.

In the past, some of the ships seemed to be missing sounds, so would cause crashes, but I believe most of these problems have been fixed.

My point is that this sort of thing is very unlikely to be due to TMO, RFB, or any other mod. The game is flawed in many areas, and this is one of them.

About being able to hear ships up to 20nm, that is another game flaw. The normal (crew) sound detections are not synced to what you can hear. It is a flaw; you should not really be able to hear that well, it is unrealistic.

Barkerov

11-26-15 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TorpX (Post 2361767)

About being able to hear ships up to 20nm, that is another game flaw. The normal (crew) sound detections are not synced to what you can hear. It is a flaw; you should not really be able to hear that well, it is unrealistic.

Is there a way to change it to a more realistic value?

TorpX

11-27-15 01:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barkerov (Post 2361773)

Is there a way to change it to a more realistic value?

I doubt it.

The crew detection ranges can, and have been, changed to realistic values (at least in RFB), but the ranges at which we hear are always at the high end. You see your sub's crew gets better as their equipment improves, but what we hear is always at the best level; it doesn't change. That is how it was explained to me.

If it was possible to correct, someone would have done it by now.

I would say just don't do manual hydrophone sweeps, until after your crew detects something.

I believe the RFB team was well aware of the issue, but lacked any means to fix it. I imagine Ducimus (of TMO fame) knew about it just as well.

xXNightEagleXx

11-27-15 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TorpX (Post 2361780)

I doubt it.

The crew detection ranges can, and have been, changed to realistic values (at least in RFB), but the ranges at which we hear are always at the high end. You see your sub's crew gets better as their equipment improves, but what we hear is always at the best level; it doesn't change. That is how it was explained to me.

If it was possible to correct, someone would have done it by now.

I would say just don't do manual hydrophone sweeps, until after your crew detects something.

I believe the RFB team was well aware of the issue, but lacked any means to fix it. I imagine Ducimus (of TMO fame) knew about it just as well.

My negative feedback was due to two thing:

1 There was really a bug but it solved as i reinstalled just some mods (specially with TMO).
2 After the reinstall, i immediately jumped to RFB full time (practically for the first time). IMO in TMO all sensors work much better both in theory (specs) and in practice. In TMO both me and the AI can hear from a much bigger distance even higher than the sonar spec.

Rockin Robbins

11-27-15 07:16 PM

NightEagle, in response to your PM, here is my present mod list:
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps4etwpiua.jpg

I'm running RSRDC right now because I was testing my plotting mods to ensure that they worked for RSRDC ships. GFO Patch for RSRDC partially gets Webster's GFO back from all the gameplay changes RSRDC makes. It doesn't totally succeed. Momi-Matsu fix is because RSRDC doesn't plot either ship on your nav map and that's kinda bad. 3000 yard bearing plotter is Capn Scurvy's, properly plotting for 1152x864 resolution. Optical Targeting Correction has been corrected by removing the spotlessly perfect ship dimensions and identification manual, keeping stock versions of both. I'm not releasing that one without express approval from CapnScurvy. TMOKeys gives me the great TMO Keyboard, before TMO 2.5 changes.

All the rest are missions and skins which have no impact on gameplay at all.

TorpX

11-27-15 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xXNightEagleXx (Post 2361910)

Installs can get borked, so I can't really say much about that.

Sensor values certainly can be changed; it's just that no one was able to sync them to what we hear. It is like what Cap'nScurvy noticed about how sometimes we cannot hear slow-moving ships, though our crews can. It is just another example of poor game design that we have to live with.

The same thing can occur with visuals. Depending on the sensor values in force, we might be able to see ships before our crew spots them, or vice-versa. Ideally, we would see as well as our crew; no better, and no worse.

Rockin Robbins

11-28-15 10:55 AM

All Torpx says is true. And it's much easier to swallow when you reflect that Silent Hunter 4 is still the best submarine simulator on the planet after a run of eight years.

Would we like to do better? Of course. Can we? No.

xXNightEagleXx

11-28-15 01:54 PM

Sir yes sir captains

Btw when i said that sensors work much better in TMO i wasn't strictly meaning better in the sense of realistic or whatever, but just in a matter of performance.

Spraug

11-28-15 04:02 PM

This is probably just stupid on my part...

... since you can set the sonarguy to do different things, could it be that he is simply not sweeping? That should be a default, but maybe it's as simple as that...

TorpX

11-28-15 11:17 PM

I won't cost anything to try, but I doubt it.

If you order him to sweep, he might report a contact within range, but afterwards, he will likely go back to daydreaming.

xXNightEagleXx

12-03-15 03:46 PM

UPDATE : skip this post, read my last one

Sorry for bringing this thing up but i'm the kind of guy that just don't accept things without understanding if there is an error or it is the normal procedure. Moreover, in case there is an error i have to try to fix it.

What was the average range for US submarine hydrophones in perfect conditions ?
Searching in the web i've read pretty high numbers, like this one :

- for a destroyer- 5 to 10 nautical miles,
- for a cargo ship- 3.5 to 7.5 nautical miles,
- for a convoy- up to 50 nautical miles.

In case of german hydrophones i've read even higher numbers.

Can someone be so kind to answer this question to me?

That said, supposing that RFB 2.0 is really struggling with sound detection being far below than reality, i've tried to isolate the files creating this weird behavior and start to analyze the situation against the same setup on stock and tmo.

Sensors_sub_US.dat
Sensors_sub_US.sim
Sensors_sub_US.zon

I've run one of the single missions (to have a similar behavior) and the first contact results was :

RFB original no contact
RFB + stock files greater than 18.500 km
RFB + TMO files greater than 15.500 km

(i've run the same test twice and the contact time was about the same)

So i guess i clearly found what files are causing this behavior (maybe just one of them or maybe all of them)

So now my request is to those modders like TorpX, would you be so kind to address me to the best way to analyze and mod those files? Since they are in binary and I don't know if there is already a tool to help modders to deal with them.

Thanks in advance

xXNightEagleXx

12-06-15 06:24 AM

UPDATE: : Further reading lead me to the conclusion that RFB 2.0 sonar ranges are both right and wrong. In case of active sonar there isn't a noticeable mistake, but in case of passive sonar there are arguments that can be discussed (it seems that the values in rfb 2.0 are for detection and identification at worst conditions). Basically the range for passive are much greater than the 7 km when it is about detection, for target identification the range decreases but still greater. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that sh4 handles this distinct difference.

OLD STUFF:

Nobody answered me about how to edit dat files thus i found out by myself.

That said i see no mystery here on why sensors in RFB works badly, these are the real values :

stock - 15/20 km for hydro and 5 km for sonar
tmo - 10.5/15/16/21 km for hydro and 5k for sonar
rfb - 7/10 km for hydro and sonar 5k

My question is, are these rfb values replicating the reality? I mean currently according to rfb the hydro range not only is low but also had a slight improvement through the war.....is that so? (i mean historically speaking)

Obviously that file shows that i cannot simply overwrite with tmo or stock files, i should clearly work on the original rfb files, which i'll do. But first as i said i would like to have information about real life ww2 us subs hydro, sonar and radar performance.

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