Radio/Sonar qualifications
 

Kapleuns!

In your experience is it worth giving one of your petty officers a radio/sonar qualification? Does it make a noticeable difference to the chances / range of hydrophone detection?

I normally just use unqualified crew members but it occurred to me last night that in stormy weather I'm so reliant on the hydrophone to pick up any targets that a specialist might help. But I don't want to use up a valuable qualification on a petty officer if it doesn't make much difference...

(I playing with GWX 1.03 by the way).

Thanks in advance, and good hunting.

Radio and Sonar are the first qualifications I go for. :arrgh!:

I have been working a lot with the hydrophone (see my tutorial at http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=107303) and although many people say the qualified sonarman hears better, in my experience this is not the case. I made some test missions in order to find out whats the difference between a greenhorn and a qualified veteran and I was surprised, because it seems that even the green sonarman can pick the contact at the same time (or even sooner) as the veteran. so I think the dev team did not simulate thoroughly the differences in experience, at least for sonarmen. dont crucify me, this is just my oppinion:roll:

I don;t think there was much difference modelled around the distance at which green vs vetran sonar ops, I think it was around the probability of detection at extreme range. Even with a green operator, you will still get contacts reported at extreme range but my experience is that green ops do not report contacts that vets do.

Simple way to test is to create a mission with several contacts at different ranges and then play two different boats with different crew experiences in the sonar ops and then run each enough times using each crew to get a bell curve of the probability of detection.

My opinion.... why take a chance. Thats what you need. Someone that is good at listening to that hydrophone. I will usually slap em with some medals too so they dont tire so quickly. If gunners, torpedo guys work better with medals it only makes sense to award your hydrophone guys also. My two cents worth. Better to award him then say a medic or as I recently found out a flak gunner.

Maybe you are right. I did not do such tests. However, I use to intercept the contact looooong before my sonarman does, and usually, all I need is his confirmation of the contacts speed (slow/medium/fast).

I have yet to see much difference either way.

There is another interesting point about this: If there is a difference between veterans and greens manning the sonar station, comes this difference from the overall compartment quality or ONLY from the guy at the hydros ?
I mean, in the case that it's the overall compartment quality that matters, you could place two half-way-experienced soldiers in there, one at the hydrophone station and the other at the radio station. Thus leading to a good value in compartment efficiency there.
But how should the radio man be able to help the sonar man recognizing contacts ? :doh:

In my travels with SH3, I've come to see a noticeable difference between having "qualified" sailors and not qualified sailors on both hydrophone and radio stations.

It is really hard to measure exactly how much difference these qualifications make in-game, but I'd say getting qualifications for those sailors is well worth the investment.

A qualified sonar-man can detect ships quicker and more accurately. That's at least my experience with SH3/GW/GWX

Yeah, but does this depend on the compartment efficiency or just on the skill of the sonar man ? If it's the compartment eff., than a GOOD sonar man and a GOOD radio guy would form a VERY GOOD team for locking in on ship vessels via hydrophone. :hmm:

Compartment efficiency and skill level are directly linked....put a qualification on a guy and watch his skill level rise plus the efficiency bar at the top of the compartment fill up :yep:

Guten Tag, Alle,

In addition, it appears to me the qualification will have more oomph the higher the rank of the petty officer, i.e., give it to a Stabsoberbootsmann instead of a Bootsmann and you'll see the green bar for the Sonar/Radio Room grow much bigger when he's in it. In actual performance, I'm still able to hear things that he cannot -- on the other hand, he can pick up distant contacts despite my e-motor noise, and he works continuously.

Now if only my lookouts were as reliable! :roll:

A qualified and experienced hydrophone man increases the range you get contacts. I've noticed that when shadowing a convoy, I get much better and consistent results now than earlier in my career.

But will a very good RADIO MAN raise the hydrophone efficiency, because he also increases the overall compartment quality ?

I mean, in the case of the torpedo rooms for example it is clear, but at the hydrophone/radio station there are two very different tasks combined in one compartment. So will this have the same effect on both tasks or does the hydrophone efficiency depend ONLY on the skill of the hydrophone guy ?

This is the question nobody wants/can answer as it seems, as everybody is telling just that a better hydrophon guy will increase the work at the hydrophone, but thats already clear enough ;)