Radar, Sonar explained
 

Radar, Sonar explained

Seems to work as expected, will test extensively tomorrow.

I don't have the game yet but how about reports of ships not being deteced by sound? Does this mean hydrophone contacts will only work if you manually control them using HOME and END keys?
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Weedtracker

All those screen shots look great to me. What is everone or almost everyone complaining about.

Also, if the control keys file is anything like SHIIIs, then it'd be easy to program shortcuts for your sonarman to report and track sound contacts (merchant and warship). :hmm:

It seems to me to work about the same as SH3. The AI crew will detect sound and radar contacts on their own. They will report them. You can go check it out yourself, or you can order the AI crewman to give you constant reports on the nearest contact, etc.

I think the sonar works best when you get to about 20 meters or deeper. I actually think the devs modeled the characteristics correctly, you can't hear as well on the surface or just below the surface...

...that radar and sonar station, would be better if they would fill the screen like SH2/3, but it works pretty well as is.

There's the first sign of other ports, "Report to Brisbane" :p

Report to the Brisbane...minor english error there, but I like that screen already, thats the sort of stuff sh3 was missing, good stuff...

Could you post some more of that sort of stuff Neal, I prolly wont be able to get the game till the end of the week at least here in Australia. I would like to see how the campain has changed for immersion.

You know what I think would be an innovative change? Being able to tell your crew to track ANY contact. Certainly it would make collecting data on a target while maneuvering possible.

I would be happy if everything would work and be as "simple" as it was in SH3. :)

Hi Neal, thanks for explaining. How do you estimate targets speed?
Manual says chronometer should work as in SH3 but i don't get any estimates.

Is the Radar a SD/SJ setup like it was in sh1???

For the hydrophone i discovered it magicly turns on when diving deeper then 17m.
I thought it was broken first because you couldent even hear your own baffles at periscope depth.
And like neal said it works perfectly with home and end keys.
It would have saved alot of confusion and anger if they stated a minimum operating depth in the manual.
It would even be better that you heard only youre baffles and a big wash noise on other bearings like you have in subcommand when listening at periscope depth instead of on and off.
For the radar i discovered that it works on the salmon class and not on the purpoiss even though it has the stations, maybe you can install radar in a career mode.
Here again too falls the manual short and causes a lot of unneccesary anger and confusion.

Still have not been sent the manual, so I'm still feeling my way around some things.

Sonar question - let's say you're running medium depth, tracking a sonar contact. Thanks to Neal, I can turn my hydrophone towards it. The sonar man tells me it's a merchant, medium range, closing slowly. I ask for a pinged range, and the answer is "no target selected." It appears the only way to get them to do an active ping for the range is to go up to periscope depth, find the ship visually, lock, then ask for the pinged range.

Is there a way to get them to give me the range without first going up and finding the ship visually?

@ Dragonhammer:

Reading your post, I understood, that it's not possible to use sound watch when your sub is surfaced. Even with those types that actually had underwater soundheads that could be lowered? (Port and starboard sides. ) One wartime manual says that "soundheads should not be left lowered above 10 knots."

You really have to submerge to get any sound information? :shifty:

Well, to answer my own question, after some playing more this morning, it seems (only one try, got to reproduce) that if my guy announces a sound contact, and he seems to immediately classify (merchant, warship,) and i ask for a range, I get "no target selected." If I click on the send info to TDC, then click on ask for range, same thing. But if I go to the sonar, point the hydrophone in the right direction, and if its close enough to show the contact on the form in the upper right, I can then click "send to TDC" and THEN click on give me a range, and it works.

Whew! Again, a big shout-out thanks to Neal (I'll try to get you and subsim.com a shout-out in the magazine article) - would have never been able to get this without the home/end key pointer.