As Peto said, SD radar has an altitude below which it will not pick up contacts. For the early SD this is 1500 feet, for the SD-1 it is 1000 feet. Otherwise, it will pick up contacts from any bearing, provided they aren't below that altitude. Also note that each radar (and sonar) set has a detection probability value (designed to simulate equipment malfunction or operator error). For the SD-1, this value is 95%, so it may have been that your radar antenna simply didn't pick up the contact, even though it was within range and at altitude. Also, do note that the early SD radar set has a maximum range of only 6 miles, so its use is somewhat limited.

BTW, all the pertinent data about radar and sonar can be found on the Weapons and Sensors page.

Hey RFB team:

Just wanted to say thanks for all your work from a long time subsim player new to the forum. Looking forward to the improvements sure to follow in the next update with your damage model reworkings and other efforts.

One question: I thought I read upstream in this thread that work was also being done on the air layer for release with the next version. If I am not mistaken on this, can you provide any further info on this aspect? Is it an incorporation of the current air layer mid?

Again, many thanks for increasing my enjoyment of SH4.

...About the sonar ... I have been a bit confused with the units used with the sonar in RFB, so could someone explain the range behaviour of active sonar measurements more closely? :doh:

For a realism i play with Imperial units although i have accustomed to metric units. Anyway while playing with the imperial units there is a label in the active sonar indicator telling that the active sonar is measuring velocity in meters? Is this a bug, is it a conversion value for metric users or was the sonar build in europe? Also my sonar operator gives strange readings when requesting exact ranges, especially for long range contacts. I know there is realism involed to the sonar measurements but when i get reading e.g. "3280!" and the actual range is more likely 6000 yards i'm a bit confused. Should the range reported be at least over the maximum range in sonar's indicator? :o :roll: :huh: Or is the unit of range reported changed when crossing certain point -> e.g. "3280! = 3.280 miles" in long range reports?

Just a little report to the Huge Save Game Bug. Started my career in Manila with the S-Class. Had to do 4 missions on my way to Freemantle. Then i was offered the Porpoise class, accepted and had this sub for 2 missions. After it i got the Gato for 1 mission. So far all savegames normal large with 2-5 mb. Now i have the Balao and the savegames expanded with the factor 100!! Savegames now 500mb and more ! :o:o

Maybe this is a little help for RFB Team solving the bug. Happy Hunting !! :up:

Thanks for the info, between the reasons you and Peto have listed, I can easily see how he could come in and blindside me, which seems more realistic to me. How much of a factor is crew effeciency??

Have that myself. Some savegames went up to 1.7 Gb. That's been mentioned and looked at and I dare say there'll be a fix for it. In the mean time grab a drink whilst the file is saving or loading :yep:

I am not certain how much of a factor crew efficiency has, but it certainly has an effect on receiving contact reports. You definitely want skilled men manning the sonar and radar (i.e., your radiomen).

Most likely this is still a bug with the game that has been around since it was released. Even though the active sonar can ping out to only 5000 yards, your sonarman will give you range values far beyond that if you just use the button on the taskbar and not the one at the 3D display. And yeah, he's probably reporting the range in meters, just like the weather report still gives the wind speed in meters/second. Stinks, but there's not much we can do about it.

Ok. That helps out a bit. So do you recommend to use metric units for avoiding this kind of problems? I think i have to do some coversion work with the map tools, but if it can be done with math (not by quessing) thats fine for me. Or what is the dev-team's official recommendation? I also noticed that multiplying the reported sonar ranges by 1.6 (or 1.7?) gives acceptable readings for long range contacts.

...a bug reprort: last night i noticed that my deck watch stayed on deck after i submerged and they were standing tall even in 250 feet depth. Changing camera angle or place (map, command tower) didn't help. I saved and restarted the game and after loading the saved game the deck watch had gone inside the ship :D. No problems, but just for a note.

Question regarding a possible RFB bug.
Installed mods are in this order:

NSM
PE (or W_Clear environment mod)
RFB
RSRDC_RFBv15_v395_RC5
RSRDC_V395_Patch 4
RSRDC_AuxGB_Fix

They are all up to date, fresh SH4 install.

My question being, my deckgun does minimal damage. Im not fussed about the reload times, thats fine and inline with realisim, however I ran a test today, I put 200 shells into a sampan today, didnt sink it.
Thinking this was strange, however dismissed it.
Later I came across a Medium merc ship, missed my torp shots, thought id try take it down with the deck gun, 150 shells later (into all areas of the ship) and it had a small fire.

Can someone please elaborate as to what might be going wrong?

:lol:

I bet the sampan crew had at least a major headache after that. What comes to your question, I don't know for sure. Might be NSM <-> RFB "conflicting" a little, or just because RFB lowers the deck gun's effectiveness quite a lot. You absolutely have to hit at the waterline or below it. If you're hitting anywhere else you're wasting ammo, since NSM gives the ships so many hitpoints they can only be sunk via flooding or a critical hit(keel, fuel, ammo, etc.). Also sometimes getting it right for the bigger ships might break something for the smaller ones. If you ever hit a trawler or a sampan with a torpedo you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

So I absoltely have to hit the waterline or under if I want any chance at sinking something with the deckgun.

Edit: another test, took on a medium merc that had a deck gun also, he managed to sink me, before I sank him, haha.

The crew being on watch outside the sub at depth happens in TMO too. Must be a 1.5 bug, not a mod.

My method is to just use the 3D interface myself if I want the sonar's estimated range to the contact. That way, if it's beyond 5000 yards I'm not "cheating," since the AI apparently doesn't adhere to that range restriction. Sounds like you have a good method there, too.

Yeah, that's one of those bugs that's been around since SH3. Comes and goes like the tide, it seems. :D

Yeah, that's one of those bugs that's been around since SH3. Comes and goes like the tide, it seems. :D[/quote]

I fixed this by installing the mods in the correct order.
However if you did this and it still persists, i dont know sorry.

I fixed this by installing the mods in the correct order.
However if you did this and it still persists, i dont know sorry.[/quote]

Seems to occur whenever I Alt+Tab out of the game.

I did that couple of times, so there's the reason. Thanks! Otherwise the RFB works fine and keeps amazing me all the time :up:

I also like to play the realistic way (:|\\ ), so i think i'll adapt your method.

Hey guys, need to ask you something:

I know everyone likes the free roaming feature in the interior, but it is fraught with bugs, as many of you have probably seen (players end up in a black or green screen, often with no way to get back to where they were). What is most likely the best compromise agreement I could make to get this feature working is to enable the keyboard command for free-roaming, so the player can still roam through the interior as they see fit. I haven't tested it yet, but I'm sure free roaming by default can and will still work for the bridge.

I love the free-roaming feature as much as anyone else, but I'd rather have the interiors working correctly all of the time than to have a player be hit with a bug because he clicked his mouse in the "wrong" place. It's not like we'd be removing free-roaming entirely, either; rather, it would just be modified a bit. How does all this sound?

I concur.

Free camera type of solution would be fine -> Hit a button if you wan't to get in the mood roaming the interrior, but maintain your position during the action :up:

Also it would be nice to have General Quarters (Battlestations?) command mapped to keyboard (e.g. B like in TMO). -> "Sir, destroyer, Bearing 010!, Moving Fast! Closing!" "Emergency dive! General Quarters!" not "Emergency dive... where's the damn CQ-button..." ;)