All fair enough... I look at it as the AO's estimate of the solution's accuracy. But that it's a percentage isn't the point - the point is that tying certain elements to that percentage (IE, plot tracking at 95%, course estimation at XX%, etc) is an issue.

At any point, I should have all three parameters - it's a solution. Not a good one (percentage applies here!), but a solution. It's the Captain's job to weigh all that's going on, how he feels about that solution, and attack when he's ready. Under this system (the CW one, to clarify), I feel like I have no choice but to wait to shoot on a 95% solution because it's the only one that provides me any feel for relative motion since I can't look at PBB data.

There are times when a bearings only shot is needed, I don't argue that point. But for any type of deliberate attack, this system almost forces you to wait longer than you might really need to.

You should get speed and course already at around 50%, with range being the final factor. There's no real provision for plotting 'wrong' solutions, so instead we assume that only data which your TMA team is confident about gets plotted.

If you remember the first two Silent Hunter games, they also used a 0-99% solution indication, where the solution for your torpedoes built up over time as you made sonar/radar/visual observations on the track. In those games though, the map was still the 'all or nothing' realtime plot. We just use the solution to drive the plot display instead and let you aim your weapons as you see fit.

The problem then lies in the assumption - all data gets plotted regardless of confidence, simply because what you aren't confident about now may well turn out to have been correct all along. A solution has three parts, and you never pass along a solution without all three of them, no matter how you or your team may feel about individual portions of them. The Captain and the rest of the control team has to steer off of something, and a single data point on the plot that never moves doesn't cut it. Even a vector arrow indicating direction of motion would be a huge improvement. As it is now, it is very difficult to determine the difference between a lag and lead geometry in the early going, and the vector arrow would help in that.

Speed and Course may well show up in the data block in the corner at 50%, but I rarely look at that block because it SHOULD be represented on the plot in a quick visual reference for use in tactical decisions.

As to Silent Hunter games, I've only played the 4th and 5th (and still play them quite a bit). It's hard to compare the two, though, since the systems that drive the plots are very different, as you point out.

Well... "possible course interval" could be indicated by drawing a "cone" rapresenting a continguos range of possible courses... until you have a 95% quality solution and you got an etremely narrow cone = a line/arrow.

But I do not know if it will improve the gameplay... Maybe a simple arrow plotted on the contact along the perpendicular of the LOB to just indicate if the bearing is drawing left or right could be useful?

[I think that if you are looking for the kind of feedback on sensor data that you describe in your post then Dangerous Waters comes to mind!]

I joined to participate in this discussion.

The TMA is way too easy and way too perfect. Real world contacts at max detection distances are tenuous, with not good bearings. Towed array bearings were always worse (and not clearly on one side off the ship vs the other).

A whole team worked on this. It was hard. The data was imperfect. And surface contacts were actually worse (non-intuitively). Fast moving, so less time to maneuver, and periscope observations are typically terrible (the difference in .2 divisions and .3 divisions is a 50% range error).

And active search torpedoes aren't the end-all solution. It's a big ocean.

DW isn't bad at all, actually. I was hoping that CW would be able to step into it's place, but it is obvious it was developed more as an 'arcadey' kind of game than a simulator. Not banging on it for that, please don't get me wrong. It's still fun, I just run into frustrations because I know what I should be seeing or getting from my 'operators' in the game, and they aren't there.

Chalk it up to actual knowledge getting in the way of simplified expression, if you will.

We definitely developed it as a throwback to the old-school style of sim we loved in the 80's and 90's.

Well, it always depends on the design of the game and in what it try to capture (what kind of gameplay it aims to deliver).
In this respect my opinion is that comparing DW with CW is like comparing apples with oranges because CW abstract/simplifies more from the "minutiae" of sensor data analysis and TMA procedures to deliver to the user a more "pre-digest tactical picture".

You still have to worry about ambient acustic conditions, enemy platform capabilities (with some nice values about your and their sensors capabilities somewhat updated to factor in the current realtimetactical situation), weapons capabilities and so on and so forth and condense everything to correctly perceive the risks, make informated guesses and finally take sound tactical decisions.

all of this without the difficult of multitasking of role you have in DW.
I bet the CW gameplay (I still haven't played it but I have both played RSR and DW) give you the feel of being the CO more than DW (where instead I sometimes have the feeling of being multiple peolpe or a single schizofrenic operator, lol).

Also, I think the user base for a game like CW is more ample than the one for DW.

They are two different games.

I'm sure this is what they were shooting for, but I still think it could be done better, hence my statements. Everything I've talked about is available to the skipper - including a look at PBB, which CW doesn't provide, btw, and I haven't mentioned to this point because I understand those reasons far better than some of the others.

As the skipper, I should be able to look at the Plot, see what's around me, our best estimate of where they are going, how fast they are getting there, and how far from me they are... regardless of how 'good' we think the solution is. Solutions do not come in three-part packages - they are a whole. When I, as a RL Sonar Supervisor, pass out a solution to the Conn, I don't pass only Course and Speed if I don't have a feel for range. I pass my gut feel for a range based on a number of factors, and that's my solution.

In game terms, even if the solution percentage is crap, I should still be seeing my crew's best estimate for a contact's complete solution, not the piecemeal version we're getting in the current system. This would, additionally, address some of the 'too-perfect' feeling that currently exists. If you aren't sure that the solution as it's currently being plotted will not be jumping around as it's being worked on by the operators, you may be more reluctant to engage so soon, as an example. As it stands, if that contact is dropping dots on the plot, you know for certain-sure that's the truth, and can essentially fire at will.

Ok, I think I now understand better your points.
I think I would like this type of gameplay as well!

But I'm curious, when you say this:
how would you rapresents, in the game, such concept of 'estimate' distinguished from the concept of the current 'solution'?
I was just wondering about how to design/implement such a thing in the game without substantially change the gameplay till the point you are making a "different" game (something like an ibrid of RSR/CW bent towards DW but with a twist... :hmmm:)

Oh yes! We can clearly see it by the CPU usage.

Because the ocean runs on the CPU so we can query it for the wave heights. This would be much slower if it ran on the GPU.

This is my current wish list for CW TMA and plot:

1. TMA on Active Sonar intercept contacts.
2. Immediate classification for ESM and Active Intercept contacts for military targets.
3. No TMA for ESM only contacts.
4. Much slower decay for TMA contacts that have lost contact, let them keep the last solution when contact had been lost.
5. Have TMA much more responsive to own-ship maneuvering. Currently, there's not enough own ship contribution of own-ship maneuvering for solution build-up.

There are more that come to mind, but these are the items that feel to me feasible, and such that will dramatically make the game more realistic and more fun in relative small effort.

I completely agree, however, I'm afraid that this is so overreaching given the current capabilities of the game that I don't dare wish for it... I hope I'm wrong :)

I posted this on the steam forum awhile back but before anyone ask for more realism (unless it's optional). read this thread:

It's hardcore players why this genre is dead

http://steamcommunity.com/app/541210...0934291143643/

Is that in response to what? The post above? The OP? What's the context?

In general on anyone saying things are too simplified and needs to be more detailed. Too much realism unless optional makes games too complicated for casual gamer, which is needed to add new blood to the genre.

Those two goals are not necessarily mutually exclusive. At all.

Dunno, if done wrong this could put the devs down a dangerous road of "feature creep" and reinventing the wheel.

That's partially why I'm sort of against automated navigation. Other games (primarily DW/SC and Silent Hunter) you had all sorts of screens and stations to go through if / when you let the AI "fly" the ship for you. CW obviously doesn't have that, and if anything, auto navigation is going to bring that up more and more (and leave people with less to do).

"I wish the TMA was better.." "I wish that I had broadband/narrowband simulation and a sonar station like DW." "I wish that the weapons had programmable waypoints..."

If the Devs start doing this, and replacing features/systems that are already in the game with better and "more sim-like" ones, its not going to make things like a Soviet campaign come out any faster. This is especially true if they try to maintain an "easy mode" alongside advanced sonar and TMA.

They have done a great job making this game, so far a great job supporting it too. I hope they continue to deal with identified issues (AI, a few of the bugs here and there) and hopefully press on towards wherever they want to take this game in the future.

What I do find most encouraging though is that in almost all instances, these desired improvements are just thoughts out loud on the part of users who are still probably going to play and enjoy the game regardless. "I really wish it had this feature." instead of "This game sucks and I'll never buy it because its ARCADE!!!!"

Actually, all of my suggestions would make the gameplay more friendly, easier AND more realistic at the same time, so your argument is wrong in the context it was given.

Yes and no, To someone who is familiar with modern military sims. It's pretty obvious that I should be able to get/narrow down the classification from ESM or Active sonar. But a casual player would wonder how one sec he have a low percentage contact and suddenly it jumped to being classified. To make them understand, the in game unit reference guide need to be updated with accurate sensor info (now pretty much all surface warship is listed with Don Kay radar) message log will also need to be modified to show that ESM have picked up a Don Kay radar bearing xxx classification possibility the following classes.......... (as some sensor are used in more than 1 platform).