Arrow Next to Contact Speed in the TMA?
 

A persistent mystery in life...

What the hell does it indicate? Nothing in the manual describes it. In fact, the manual doesn't even show a shot of the TMA and it's information.

Not even Google search reveals anything. People have been asking, but no one is answering, lol.

Guessing what it might mean is one thing. Actually knowing specifically what it indicates is another.

Thanks.

arrow
 

it indicates if the target is below or above the thermal layer i think

The arrow also shows on surface ships. Obviously, they will always be above the thermal layer (unless it's sinking, of course...).

Second, the arrow shows when there is no thermal layer.

Also, while crossing above and below a thermal, I compared my sonar sensitivities while tracking a submerged target, and the results simply didn't coincide with the direction the arrow pointing. For example, I'm above the layer, and the arrow in his TMA is pointing up. Yet when I dive, as soon as I cross the layer my sensitivities increase, and the compared numbers rise slightly as well. Go back up through the layer into the surface duct again, and the numbers correspondingly drop again. Arrow points up (or down) the whole time.

Finally, you can clearly see how deep the sub you're tracking is on the conditions window just by his little sub icon. I use a mod that blocks that bit of info as it's kind of a gamey cheat, but still.

The arrow is on the speed row in the TMA, so I'm guessing it has something to do with the contact's speed? But no idea what it indicates. If you have speed data you can already plainly see if he's accelerating or decelerating, so having an arrow somewhat vaguely pointing up or down is redundant.

Like I said, we can make reasonable guesses - not hard to do. But without actually knowing specifically what the arrow indicates, it's kind of pointless to do so.

It is supposed to show if the contact is above or below the layer. Maybe it actually shows if the contact is above or below you.

to clarify
 

it shows if the target is above or below the layer LIKE i said ( it dose mean from the targets Perspective of course )

see pictures also look in your huds text for this

ContactAboveLayer=hud/usnA1/icon_arrow_up.png
ContactBelowLayer=hud/usnA1/icon_arrow_down.png

as for arrow showing when no thermals that is not suppose to happen so no idea my game has never done that ?

also im glad i answered this as Biologic s are not show on conditions so ill add em to my mod this helps with depth finding

Steel Shark

Reinstalled, ran through everything again, and yeah; it's an above/below thermal indicator.

Don't know why I was getting it on missions where there was no thermal, but it's not happening now.

Also getting appropriate changes in SNS and COMP readings when tracking a contact while crossing the layer. Seems like the opposite of what should have indicated was happening last time, it wasn't making any sense. Or maybe I was just mistaken - that's probably more likely...

Anyway, issue resolved. Thanks for the replies, and sorry for the trouble.

no trouble.
 

was a very good question & ive improved my mod that is in progress because of it so thank you