TDCs and Idiots
 

This is a short post for folks out there using the TDC, and who don't really know what they are doing....

I found that playing the school torpedo mission, over and over, where you have some free shots at a crusier moving across your bow, as well as reading the endsheet in Theodore Roscoe's book on Submarine warfare in the pacific, helped a ton.

I am still really basically guessing at the AOB (angle on the bow) and the speeds, but figure that I will get better with time.

What I started doing wrong, is that I didn't realize when inputting the AOB into the TDC, that it isn't asking for the target's angle on MY bow, it is asking what is the angle from the TARGET to MYSELF, namely, if the capt. was standing on his bridge, what would be his angle of view to ME.

Now all that might sound lame, but it isn't something that I ever really realized in reading about this stuff, and in SH3, I always let the WO do the inputs....

For those w/o this game, or are still just pointing and shooting, it is a helluva thrill to get your first hit doing your own inputs on a moving ship....

neato!

Yeh... would be nice, but my stadimeter crashes the game. :nope:

Definitely a good tip for people new to setting the TDC themselves and probably the number one error.

You'll have to go back and play some sh3 with manual targeting now too :D It's a completely different game when you have to set up the shots.

I love the american TDC and I'm really starting to get into sh4. Can't wait for the patch.

Luckily, my stadimeter functions just fine.

Running AMD 3400, 7800GT with latest drivers, and 2 gig of ram.

mine crashed as well when i had the recog book open, try closing it first before you use the stadimeter and it works. for me anyway.

I always close it when done indentifying the ship. :roll:

AMD 64 3500+ 7800GTX latest drivers, 2gb RAM. :)

that sucks, i haven't used the stadimeter but only on that training mission, i just set up the aob and speed and then guess the range, start the posistion keeper in the tdc window and go to the attack map there you can see where your tdc thinks the target should be, then i adjust the range to match the actual ships range and fire away

I know that we've complained alot about bugs but... thats a pretty bad one. I mean all the hardcore fans that will play this game and you can't even use the stadimeter properly without being careful... thats worse than the torpedo speed problem in SH3.

When one bug involves getting one of 3 key pieces of info for the TDC... you know the game is incomplete.

As for AOB its the same as in SH3. In sh3 the AOB tool in the notepad use the same comparison shot, ie the target ship and from what angle the sub would appear to it. I always use math for AOB though, but then I have been meaning to practise my guessing work.

yeah it sucks but at least i figured out why it crashed, so i just close the book before i use the stadometer at least it works for now. as far as getting the speed from there tool i have no idea how to use it i just use the ruler and chrono

It has often been said that range is the least important of all TDC calculations, and my own experience comports with that. Have you tried pre-setting the range to something like 1,500 or 2,500? Thats what I almost always do with SH3, and it seems to work. i dont have the game yet or I would try it myself. Joe S

Thats true, but for people who mightbe new to manual TDC they have to learn how to guess range properly and the only real way to do that is to do accurate range finding until you can guess the range. But if I can't use my stadimeter to learn ranges to begin with I have no frame of reference for guessing. Its a chicken and egg thing.

I don't think there is any other way to input the range except the stadimeter. The full TDC (a'la SH3) is not modelled...

r.

you can input the range manually, just click on the gauge and you can rotate it, note that the range is the inside wheel, I haven't yet understood what the numbers on the outside wheel are.

I think it´s the height of the target ship. Besides, I only have been able to rotate the outer wheel. :shifty:

No you cannot input range that way.

The manual is your friend.... The outer wheel sets the height of the mast (which indirectly adjusts the range, but not in a usable way), the inner wheel is rotated by moving the Stadimeter image. Sadly, while you can move the Stadimeter, many people have a CTD when they try and leave it (by left-clicking).

r.

Please correct me if I´m wrong.

I also get a CTD when using the stedimeter. Sometimes it crashes and sometimes it don´t. Anyway, so in order to use menual targeting we now have to guess (or estimate if you like) range (stedimeter broken), AoB (Always an estimate so no biggy) and speed (broken/non working).

This is silly... Even getting a fairly good estimate chances to hit are at best slim. Personally I find estimating the range nearly impossible. AoB I´m used to estimate so not to big of a deal. Speed is also fairly easy to estimate but after trying a few torpedo attacks I found that I missed 100% of the torps. That isn´t too strange considering the fact that I´m more or less shooting blindly!

I could have perhaps use detailed plotting to get a fairly good reading of the target speed if could get a very accurate range reading. But I can´t because I CTR when I use the stedimeter...

Way to go UBI :down:

AOB and speed are most important. Range is the most unimportant data for the fire solution, because when the gyro (lead) angle is right, it is right enough for a target at a huge variety of ranges if AOB and speed are accurate. You are most likely missing not because of inaccurate range, but because of the AOB or speed estimates.

My English is too limited to explain further and I don't have the time either, but all that is happening when you have wrong range is basicly that your torps will impact sooner or later than expected.

Try it by making a fake targetting set up and note the green line (gyro angle) on the attack map. Then, change just range, and watch how little the gyro angle changes except for very close ranges.

I never before used the TDC in SH games, they turn out to be too complicated, and even if I do everything absolutely correct (SH3) the torpedoes go faaar beyond the target... as for sh4, stadimeter ctd`s on me as well..

However I haven`t given up on the game, it looks good, and as soon as they fixed the stadimeter im all for getting perfect solutions big time :D

AMD Athlon X2 4200+ clocked to 2.5 ghz each core. 2048 mb OCZ Dual Platinum Edition. GeForce 7800 GT 256 mb. (Looks like I need a better v-card on this one.. laggs alot sometimes when ships are blowing up all around me, or if I am in the sink Yamato in harbour mission, alot of terrain rendering.)


S!

RH

Cool!! Dean, you know you could do the eaxct same thing on the SH3 notepad...a little circle where you had to move a dot (your sub) around a ship to input AoB into the TDC.

I had no idea, I never did this in SH3, and simply let the weapon's officer do all the inputs for me.

How freaking lazy I am... eh?

I'm sorry to hear about the ctd on the stadimeter thing. I haven't had this problem at all so I really don't have any ideas.

I've never had the stadimeter crash on me yet, either. I don't have a dual core cpu and it seems people having the crash have a dual core.