TLAM

This is a direct consequence of the Missle Launch Sound fix. In the DB, all sublaunched missles have a 100 PSL. The TASM and the SS-N-27 (both I have tested and exhibit this phenomenon) are seaskimming missles, travelling over the water at around 30ft.

This entirely unintended, and a consequence of the DW sound physics engine.

You guys can tell me how it should be... I suppose this makes ASM much less attractive now. So I guess I should ask our sonar men: will a seaskimming missle leave a transient?

Edit: Well, I've pretty much figured out that objects travelling at sea-skimming level and little above are treated by the sound engine as being on the surface. :doh: This is unexpected and unwelcome, as the fix was the same as that applied to SCX, so I guess that means something has been changed and needs to be changed again. :hmm:

Edit Two: GRRRR..... Well, that didn't take long. SOME sonar sensors are set to have a detection capability at 300ft above sea-level, but not all.

I have to fix this, since the game isn't generally written where I'd want that to be the case. I want to email Amizaur and ask him about this, but I'm pretty sure I can go ahead with this.

Expect an updated version very soon, this should be a simple fix. :up: :hulk: :damn:

Thanks TLAM for bringing this up.

Ok, I believe I have resolved the problem. Previously, all playable hull sonars' max height were set to 0m (ok), but all the sphere and TA sonars were set to 300m. According to my understanding of array geometry, max-min shouldn't affect the operation of it in the cone.

So, I have changed all playable passive sonars to have max height of 10m and min height of -3000m. I found that if I set it to 0, then even in low seas contacts would not display correctly on the waterfall. I have changed the hull sonars as well, in order to be consistent. In addition, I have changed the sonar buoy parameters to match these as well, to eliminate the same skipping problem.

Everything seems to work and the seaskimmers don't show up on sonar anymore.

I and a few others need to play around with it a little bit more to be sure I haven't messed anything up. If anyone wants to look at the fix, send me a PM. :|\

Test 71
 

The test torpedos used by the Kilo's doesn't appear to respond to guidence input from the wire after the weapons mod. They still respond to enable/pre-enable and shutdown commands. As far as I can remember they originally had full capability in the unmodded version.

Correct me if i'm wrong on this one.

Those torpedos have been unaffected by the mod. They can only be steered before they have enabled for the first time, if I remember correctly. :up:

Thanks!

I think the sonar sensitivity to air units was intended to be able to track ASW helicopters using the passive dipping sonar. Does that still work with the mod?

That actually never worked, as no air objects have Passive Sound Levels in the standard database.

Given the fact that the sound engine doesn't make a distinction that I can find between objects underwater and objects not underwater, within the detection max-min of the passive sonar senors, it doesn't seem likely that this feature can be included without significant reworking.

I suppose we could give helo's a low PSL (around 20-40), but then they would behave exactly like quiet underwater objects, and it would mean making the passive sonar heights higher, which would then present the same problem as before.

So, the basic problem here is that the game makes no distinction between water and air as far as passive-sonar detectable sound goes, as far as I can tell. The only way to work around this so as not to produce anything funny in gameplay that is significant, is to lower the max height of passive sonar, as the helo-sonar feature seems a bit more minor than the persistant missle transients or silent missle launches, especially because SCS didn't even make a serious attempt at including it.

PS. I'm feeling better and better about the sonar fix. I think I can send v1.01 to Bill this afternoon, but I'd like to hear back from Amizaur first. ;) :smug:

Ok, I've sent v1.01 with the playable passive sonar fix to Bill. :doh: :sunny:

It's up now. :up:

Thanks Bill! :D

Here is the v1.01 addition to the readme, really just a rehashing...

V1.01

Playable Passive Sonar Parameters-BETA- All playable passive sonar arrays have changed to have a Maximum detection of height of 10m. Previously hull sonars and buoys had a Max of 0m
and sphere and towed arrays had a max of 300m. This caused any object with a passive
sound level to show up on sonar as if it were underwater, specifically seaskimming
missles whose sound levels were changed in this mod to simulate underwater missle
launch (Thank you TLAM Strike for finding this). I have not set the depths to 0m because this causes contacts to display inconsistently on the BB waterfall. I do
not believe that cone sensitivity is effected in any way by this fix within the
detection Max and and Mins, but there could be other issues I am not aware of. This
may be refined later, but it is necessary now to address persistent sea-skimming
missle transients.

I tracked helo from sub several times ! I must check it out .. I'm not sure wich sensor I did use.
With Seastate=0 (unrealistic but possible in DW) you can track helo for several miles. It just have to be at low altitude. On tests I made once it was at 50ft. Once I also saw mh60 in akula, during SP mission. I was near PD and helo went right over me. I saw it for few seconds like fast moving 'spike' on the NB. I also died soon later :-)
Helo contacts have no NB lines (which coresponds to what real sonarmen report).

Dr. Sid

That is very very interesting. I went back and checked the database more carefully.

SOME air ASW platforms have a PSL and some don't. Again, I have no idea why SCS would make this the case. The Seahawks have a PSL of around 50, and the Orions are *quieter*, around 40. (??? :hmm: )

So, apparently, they did include that. :doh: :doh:

However, in order for the missle transient fix to work properly, I had to make those changes, at least as far as I know. So, yes, I have now disabled the feature that allows subs to track air-platforms, but only a random selection of them were trackable anyway, so I don't feel too bad about that, at least not yet. :shifty: Also, as thing were set, you'd be able to track any air-platform with a PSL up to 900ft (according to my tests, it could just be that I was dealing with objects that were very loud), so even if the helo just flew high over you, it would still have shown up on BB.

I am totally open to suggestions about how to handle this. :yep: :sunny:

Edit: random thought, if you hear a helo in a sub, you're dead. Does it matter what dead men hear? :-j :rotfl:

Based on what you are saying, it is possible that there is some kind of muffling feature that the game employs for sounds above sea-level, but apparently, the seaskimming missles were loud and low enough that the muffling was not nearly sufficient, and they showed up as if they were underwater.

This raises some new avenues of investigation... :ping: :o :hmm: :damn: :huh: :|\ :know:

Just going through the DB in your mod, and when you were raising the SLs for sub launched missiles it seems you forgot to raise the C801's (carried by the Han) also. Sorry for being so picky.

Whoops, got me! Sorry about that oversite... :oops: I'll make sure it gets corrected when we do our next version, in the meantime those of you who mind, can fix it with the DB editor (just download the editor to you database folder, load the DB, find the C801 in the object list using the search function and change the Passive Sound Level to 100, make sure you save the DB before you exit the editor, many o'change has been lost that way... ;) ) unless there is an overwhelming outcry demanding a new version... :lol: :|\

Same for the Exocet too. :)

:doh:

Thanks!

Credits to you in the next version readme! :up: :|\

I have a BETA for a fix to the SLAM-ER that would justify a new version of the mod if it works correctly. I have started a new thread just for the SLAM-ER fix, as I feel it is important.

Let me know what you think, I need people's opinion and a few Orion specialists to take a look.

ive never tried the P3 or the MH60 or infact the seawolf hmmm i need some advice

Ok I'm routinely blowing up buildings with SLAM-ER's now, no problems whatsoever. So I think v1.02 is ready to go except for the .zip distribution.

I should add, the SLAM-ER is not the greatest weapon, because it is about as accurate as a TLAM but with half of the warhead, so you need a few of them to really put on the hurt, but I suppose, such is life. :|\ :up: