Haven't had time to test the "fake" carrier airgroup idea, but I have been testing new sensors.

I have several working, and I'm dialing them in. On a clear, dead calm night with a big ole moon, I just picked a path between to subchasers escorting a convoy. I got within 1500 yards of a merchant before a SC picked me up at ~2000 yards. That's about what I'm used to for the escorts, maybe a little closer than usual, but the merchants hadn't seen me at all at 1500. Had their been some chop i'd have gotten closer.

Honestly, on a clear night like that, I felt like I should have been seen sooner.

tater

In SH3 that was not enough to spawn the plane. The Type of the ship had to be set to carrier or escort carrier.

BTW, it is impossible to read yellow font for people who use haylazblue settings for their forum profile.

AI_Visual
MinRange
MaxRange
MinHeight
MaxHeight
MinBearing
MaxBearing
MinElevation
MaxElevation
MinSurface
Sensitivity

I've mostly been messing with range so far. MinSurface and Sensitivity have me a little confused.

In Cfg, there is the Sim.cfg file, which contains:

[Visual]
Detection time=0.5
Sensitivity=0.01
Fog factor=1.0
Light factor=1.0
Waves factor=1.0
Enemy surface factor=400
Enemy speed factor=15

So, which gets used?

Since the stock values in the dat are 0, could it be that if the value is 0, it uses Sim.cfg, else it uses the dat value?

MinSurface (Enemy surface factor) is self explanatory, it's a cross sectional area. How does sensitivity work? Are larger numbers are worse or better? Guess there is only one way to find out, lol, test (unless someone else knows).

Yes, tater, from my understanding if the values in the .dat are 0, the .cfg values are used. Otherwise the .dat is used.

[edit] Description of sensitivity (from .act file)

The sensity of the sensor. At (Sensitivity * MaxRange) distance we have a double detection time. If 0, then the value from sim.cfg file is taken.

Ah, extremely useful. Is double detection time good, or bad, lol?

Am I right in thinking detection time shorter makes the sensor more effective?

AFAIK in SH3 the external CFG was dominant. In any case, I have been able to noticeably change the results just by tweaking the latter, so I can at least assure it worked like that in SH3.

The dat overrides in SH4 if >0.

I tested a sensitivity of 10 in the dat, and I rammed a Fuso and started blowing up her float planes and lifeboats and she still didn't see me.

Since previous ests I did had assumed 0 was the best, I need to adjust a little. Defaul in the cfg is 0.1 or so, so I will change my BB to 0.001 and see what happens.

Not strictly true Serg
Any ship will spawn an aircraft ( inc merchants ) PROVIDING there is an airbase in range - Steibler tested that one IIRC
Type 8 and 9 escort and fleet carriers will spawn them anywhere

Have not had time to test whether the type of airbase affects spawning from any unit

@ Tater
It may be the CA aircraft act differently due to the classifications being different
IE a Pete is a type=304 - Patrol aircraft

Also the amount of aircraft on the CV is way too high
As the game WILL spawn the lot

Not sure if tis the case in SH4 as not played a lot but in SH3 ALL aircraft tend to fly to the furthest range aircraft in a group
An aircraft that has a range of 350 miles in the cfg has been seen a lot further than that if another aircraft in the airgroup has a larger range

The aircraft ranges while somewhat realistic (strictly speaking) don't work well with the weak airbase/airgroup paradigm. I've already made mods fixing this issue by reducing the airgroups, as well as altering plane ranges so that they are at least in a reasonable CAP radius.

Leo did experiments and found that the floats would attack detected targets. I'll have to check the type issue though. If 304 does the trick, it's easy enough to make a "ASW Patrol" version of the kate and val, point them at the stock models, and change the types. I'll test that later. :yep:

tater

It was sergbuto :p Sharing the icon has sometimes its downsides, you are blamed for what someone else did :88)

lol hardly blame
My apologies to you and Serg :oops:
I am so used to seeing that avatar with you posting

IIRC Steibler got Hurricanes to show from the CAM ship

MOOSE! :lol:
Im really sorry matey I couldnt resist, lord knows I tried!

Aircraft are tricky.

Leo discovered that the floats seem to act differently than CV airgroups. Apparently they are always reactive, instead of flying patrols, they react to reports made by other units.

tater