Yes its was a twilight so in theory it was a visual sightings. I'll try snorkeling in the middle of the night and see what happens. If anyone attacks then it can only be from radar fix.

OK just tried a new scenario, this time November 1944 with a Type XXI boat. I started snorkeling from periscope depth in the North Sea in the middle of the night, I was unmolested by aircraft for the entire night. This was in wind speed 6 seas, I'm not sure how well you could run the snorkel in higher wind speeds though. I found in calm sea you can still make the snorkel work from 17 m depth, it just skims the surface.

Clearly the first time they were eyeballing me. BTW I should say I'm using the airpower mod, so I don't know if the radar is still faulty in the Wellington.

Well with this change and if the radar detectors can be set to historical limits it would seem that the survivability issues can be much improved. Let me know if you need any more info for the radar detectors Jungman :yep:

Has there been any progress regarding the issues mentioned in this thread? :cool: :up:

Yes. I just did a major test to fix the Snorkel / airplane spotting problem.

The mod listed for the Snorkel_Radar fix will help from hiding from radar. But listen to this.

I made the enemy Visual range to zero to get it out of the way. The Snorkel is not detected at all April 1943 by several radars, A Flower Corvette type 286 had a range of 3 km at 1.5m MinSurface modded to 2.5m. You extend the Snorkel completly high up.

Also Catilina airplanes using the ASVMark I radar set for that 2.5m never picks you up with radar.

Nor the aircraft carrier using SP radar set for 0.3m modded to 1.5m.

The problem is that the Snorkel VISUAL size is Huge!

It is not radar that is causing the problem per say.

If you are cruising with snorkel underwater, the airplanes sees the Snorkel Visual area as extremely big. And they attack from far away. It is not the radar.

I am going to put the original values for radar back in with the Visual enemy AI set to zero to shut it off, and test the default values to pick up the Snorkel, to see if changing the radar signature has any real effect.

Unfortunatley, I cannot find the data for the Snorkel VISUAL surface area to lower it to something a bit bigger than the periscope size. As it is now, the game thinks the Snorkel is as big as your submarine.!!

You can only use it if you barely have it above the water.

Unless I can find the Visual data for the Snorkel, So far no luck at all, only a 'reduction' of MinHeight to Visual sensor in the AI_Sensors.dat file from zero to say 1.5m will let you snorkel better without being seen. Of course your scope is even more invisible. This is not the greatest solution for this problem.

It would make you periscope and snorkel invisible below 1.5m and maybe you could go flank speed and the ship will never see you. I need to test this in game and see what happens, if this could be used as a viable fix. Least I fix one thing, and breaks another part of gameplay mechanics.

I used the original AI_Sensor.dat file and stock radar values.

It seems to make no difference. Testing with the Visual set for zero range (blind airplanes and DD), the snorkel will not be detected by radar. At least the 0.3m band. The 0.03m radar maybe a different story....

It does seem it is the "Visual Size" of the snorkel is too big. Anyone know where this is stored? I never found it. :roll:

Sorry to highjack this thread...I am going to create a new thread with all the new findings summary.

Oh no. You didn't hijack the thread, at all. You just found the base-cause for the entire mess. If the surface area of the snorkel really is massive (as it would seem), then that's the only thing that needs to be changed. The area will be quite a bit larger than just a typical periscope, though, especially with the later models. I imagine the flat surfaces and the enormous head really put out strong returns, over just an ordinary periscope. I'd imagine nothing over 15m^2, with a periscope giving 6-7.

Thanks for all the work Jungman! It doesn't surprise me that the snorkel would appear as huge to the aircraft. I'm looking around different files in the folder, but I don't know if I will find anything. I'm not sure what I am really looking for, but I'd love to help out someway.

Ok then it is good to speak here. I am testing with special hack files which shut off the enemy AI radar, visual, and sonars.

This helps me track it down. The airplanes have less visual time to see you Uboat flying so fast, the detect time is 15 seconds for a sweep.

It is almost a combination problem.

The airplanes are high up in air and do not suffer visual clutter as the DD do flat on the ocean.

But the opposite is true for the Radar. The DD are in detection range longer...vice versa for airplanes.

I think maybe the best way to go is maybe a small tweak to the Visual MinHeight from zero to maybe 0.5m. Or a tweak to the Surface detect from zero to a small value.

Plus a small nerf to the radar MinSurfaces. I tell you, the interplay of all this together is a most difficult task to balance out just right.
Change one value to help airplanes ruins DD, help the snorkel againts DD hurts airplanes too much.

Unless I can find where the surface data is stored for Snorkel and Periscope against radar and visual, then all I can do is a small tweak. It will not be most ideal...but generally it should stop super spotting using the snorkel most of the time, not always.

Another thing, the snorkel depth in a type VIIC boat is default 10m depth and in 5 m/s waves the boat itself is being seen in whole. When using the snorkel manually set your snorkel to just enough to break the waves and work. That helps alot, and needs to be done with this Mod. I use depth 11m with waves at 5 m/s.

That is not so bad considering how much trouble the real Uboat captains had with the snorkel in big waves and being spotted on the surface between radar/visual from 'airplane and DD combo'.

Update:
Just one last thought, maybe use the airplanes speed and time over target against itself. I could increase the time for a Visual detect. It will not affect you attack against merchant and Destroyer ships since you will spend all long time mostly compared to seconds or a few minutes for airplanes.

Thus a change to Visual detect time will hurt the airplanes much greater than Ships spotting you.

Jungman is it going to be possible to change the Radar warning detectors to the proper specifications, like we previously discussed?

I think they should be increased, in proportion to the game's world limit of 25 km.

The enemy ship radar has a long range beyond visual, and just for game sake, the Uboats really could detect those strong signals from far away also. (though many captains thought the RD were putting off signals that the allies were picking up and never used them)

What happens in game if you are using TC to speed things up, the airplane especially with 15 km radar will pick you up and you are dead with a dozen airplanes on you. With a more functional decent range on the radar warning, it should alert you there are airplanes in the vicinity.

This may help people to get ready for an airstrike, and/or stop and dive to periscope.

This is very doable and I can give you a modified file Sensors.dat to test with. Tell me if you want to try it out. It may solve alot of problems with airplanes TC to hide faster.

The snorkel running under water being picked up so easy is still a problem I am trying to work around with a small nerf to either radar or visual parameters, without breaking the ability for DD and Ships to see your periscope sneaking in on them. It will work, just a heck alot of paly balance to get it just right without noticeable detriment to gameplay.

Sure Jungman, I'd be happy to try it out. Certainly if the sensors range are increased, it will give much greater survivability, especially if using the Airpower mod.

Well, here is a first shot at better RF detectors for yee Unterseeboot.

http://rapidshare.de/files/3358106/RF_Detect.rar.html

RF_Detect Mod :sunny:
-----------------------
RF_Detect Mod Jungman July 25, 2005 Silent Hunter III patch 1.4

This is a first try improvement to make your mostly worthless radar warning detectors up to historic values.
Indeed, it will help you detect those pesky airplanes long before they pounce on you, I hope. It will also
pick up any ships using radar. This needs to be tested. It maybe too good, or not enough.
place in your Data/Library folder. And as usual, backup your original Sensors.dat file.

Metox: 4km range @ 15 sec sweep Old
Metox: 10km range @ 15 sec sweep New

Borkum: 5km range @ 15 sec sweep Old
Borkum: 15km range @ 10 sec sweep New

Naxos: 7.5km range @ 15 sec sweep Old
Naxos: 20km range @ 10 sec sweep New

Tunis: 10km range @ 15 sec sweep Old
Tunis: 25km range @ 5 sec sweep New

I increased in proportion out to the in game engine maximum limit of 25 km defined by Enemy Radar.
In practice, the best radar in game used by the enemy is only 16km. In the Sim.cfg or Sensors.cfg
the detection time is double when further than half the maximum range. So maybe the longer detect ranges
will have an affect. I aslo increased the Sweep Period faster for the better radar detectors in order to
make them better than the earlier models in case Enemy airplane radar range limits are a mute point.

I may reduce these down after some testing and feedback. I was liberal in the range. In game is a different story.
I need to figure out what is the real maximum, do they detect airplanes solid out beyond their radar at 25km
or do they actually detect the 'radar signals' from (8 to 16km) for airplanes, and (3 to 15 km) for Ships.

One last thing, this includes the Visual range increase out to 20km, which is actually limited to 10km.

I.E. Do these units work as Radar Detectors or Active Radars? It maybe why they were nerfed by Devs.

Nice. I like the choices for ranges. I didn't even know they had sweeps times...

I don't know why they do. I though the RWR didn't sweep. They can't determine bearing.

You know, I was thinking, wouldn't it be great to attach a sound to the RWR. In reality you got an audible squak or tone each time the radar swept over. A solid tone if the radar focused on the boat (as happened with late war radars) and you could judge whether the aircraft was coming towards or moving away by the gap between bleeps.

Jace, yes the Metox and Borkum did have an audible warning that increased in strength depending on the contact, the closer it was then the louder the tone, and this was connected to the U Boats speaker system. Unfortunately in SHIII the RWR mechanism in the radio room is not really modelled, if it was then you would be able to see the bearing. Later mechanisms like Naxos and Tunis presented the signals on a cathode ray tube oscilloscope (known as B-Rohr) which would present the intercepted radar signals similar to the visual presentation of the radar screen in SH III.

Jungman, one other thing strikes me here which is to not worry too much about the sweep times, because in the case of the Metox and Borkum systems they were 'swept' simply by a member of the watch crew rotating the Biskayakreuz by hand. Only with the Naxos onwards did you have permanent antennas (usually using the D/F loop on the u-boat) which could be rotated by the Funker from inside the boat.

Thanks for this, I'll try the file tonight and let you know how I get on.

It is a big guess. I tested some. It definetly works.

I have a Metox and I get a report within 15 seconds of radar signals detected 5 to 10 km. I am trying to acertain if it is the actual radar signal (which is displayed as a circle) is detecting or the ship itself.

Makes a difference since best radar is 17 km for ship and airplanes, many are much less. I listed it in the readme above.

Basically what good does a 25 km range for radar detector when the games ships and airplanes so not cary that far ranging radar?

You could increase the range of your Uboat Active radar, then you could pick up contacts at distance. The Sweep time, sensitivity and one distance factor determines detection. Also the base detection ARC and Probability to Detect with Arc value is 16 degrees at 95% can be changed too.

I did settle on the snorkel fix, just make the MinHeight for Visual in the AI_Sensors.dat from zero to 1 meter. This allows snorkel usage much better, but not perfect. You must know to set snorkel about 1 meter above the waves, which in heavy waves is going to be hard and maybe get seen.

The XXI snorkel is much higher than the VIIC. It sticks way up so go lower in water with this change.

When you get close than about 3000m to 2000m you risk detection as normal since the mute factor is removed if within half a detectors max range. So for the snorkel is not seen willl at 8 km it will be start to show with 4 km of target.

So these two fixes, one for Snorkel in AI_Sensors.dat and basic changes to Sensors.dat for Radar Warning is working quite well to spot airplanes (and help with snorkel attracting).

I have no problems and did not break gameplay. :P

I am surprised no one downloaded the file yet. I guess I had this discussion in the wrong forum thread :yep: Time to announce it.

Wish people could beta test some more though. I have a new AI_Sensor.dat file for people to install the Snorkel fix, but it needs to be integrated into my SonarDC Mod they share. I can make a stand alone version for the default game. I need input for what to do -too many mods become confusing. I can place a link here for the one I am using to go in junction withthe one made above.

Between thses two, I think I may just call it SensorPak ?

Jungman, tried out the mod. Its working great for me, especially with the ASV radars. The detectors are provided true security now. The sensorpak is a great idea and coupled with Rub and/or the Airpower mod, I think its simulating a far more realistic electronic warfare environment now. Great work. Sensorpak is also a good idea :up:

Gee, I started this thread with a story about the XXI and now I see it has grown into a XXI FIX IT! :rotfl: Can we talk about stories or is that too much? :rotfl:
:sunny:

Will the detectors work while snorting then? I thought I read that
the detectors didn't work underwater even when the snorkel is
employed...

Cool. This is looking great. SensorPak would be a great idea. I use your DC mod and would like to keep using it. :up: :up:

Jungman...please do a default game mod also with schnorkel and radar detection. I currently dont use mods...but will use RuB soon (after I tire of the default game).

Awesome work :up: Again proving that the modders can do more than the devs are allowed to by UBISTANK. This is stuff that SHOULD have been fixed in 1.4b

difool2... I have read several places that in the late war, they did in fact have radar detection ON the schnorkel.