Stadimeter: Where to put horizontal crossline?
 

Allright, stadimeter problems have been discussed through and through in the last year. I think everyone, beginner and intermediate players alike (me included), still struggle with the stadimeter to the point of madness, especially when you cannot check your solution using the attack map (like in RFB+RSRD mod).

I was so frustrated with the wide ranges of estimation even at closer range, that I admit I have left the game in disgust. But now I am back...

I've been thinking... Since stadimeter measures angle, from which the range is infered, I was wondering if, perhaps, part of the problem was the position of the horizontal crosshair line in TBT/Attack periscope sight. Since a stadimeter measures the angle between the tip of the mast and the waterline, the periscope's crossline should be lined with the waterline. If not, when the double image is put on the tip of the highest part of the ship, of course the angle will be too short or too wide...

Am I making sense, or does the stadimeter ignore the position of the crossline when calculating the angle?

I'll probably be pillaried as a heretic for saying so but you have alternatives to using impossible mods that give you grief. These range from not using them at all to using parts of them that appeal to you..which is what I do.

As for the stadimeter it has been discussed to death. I learned to use it by trial and error in the Artillery sub school and in campaigns. It can be ,often is, frustrating but it can be mastered with practice and patience.

There is an alternative to using it however:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...&postcount=167


Try the Dick O'Kane method. It is easy manual targeting. You can mix it up with full manual to relieve some of that frustration while you master the full manual. Doing that either saved me from Auto targeting or quiting all together...I'm not sure which...:lol:

You might also try learning the sonar attack and approach...doing so might help shed some light on the whole process. Believe it or not I have had a higher rate of success with sonar attacks than with stadimeter assisted attacks. :yep:

Good Luck...and stick with it.

Will check the O'Kane method... but was it really used by Dick O'Kane historically? Seems too simple to be true. :hmm:

Just wondering, because it is really only with the range estimation that I struggle with, thus the damn stadimeter. :p

That's nice compared to some of the names I've called it. I understand in SH3 the line should be at the waterline, but in SH4 it does not matter. After all you aren't superimposing the masthead on the line, but on the waterline. That angle stays the same no matter what part of the field of view the waterline is in. Your horizontal centerline doesn't have any part of the calculation.

You can't use the attack map to check your setup? I use it all the time in TMO and I can't imagine RFB is harder. There is a line showing the lead angle of the shot. The end of that line closest to your target and extending ahead of it on the target's course (if you're set up right that is!) is the impact point. I don't have RFB installed so I can't check it out right now.

Did Dick O'Kane use the Dick O'Kane technique? Aaronblood and I have done enough research to know that he COULD have. What we do know from Wahoo and Clear the Deck is that O'Kane would follow the target around with the PK on making sure that the PK and the target were in agreement. In SH4 parlance, he switched to the attack screen and adjusted target range, course and speed until the PK perfectly tracked the target.

Then he sighted ahead of the target, turned the PK off, sent that bearing to the TDC and fired as juicy parts of the target "passed the wire." He mentioned approaching at 90º to the track also. Put all the pieces together and you get something very close to the Dick O'Kane technique.

The funny thing about it is that Aaronblood, gutted and I invented the technique first and then fished around for an appropriate name. Aaronblood was reading Clear the Deck and connected the dots. Although he may not have used the precise technique, it is appropriate that we named this devastating procedure after the master of the Torpedo Data Computer, Dick O'Kane.

I have RFB v1.5 plus RSRD, and the Attack Map isn't keymapped anywhere, and not even accessible through the GUI. I have looked everywhere for a way to access it, but to no avail.

So until I can find a way to access the Attack Map with these two mods. I am basically blind as far as target solutions are concerned. :-?

I use TM, but there's one trick I use to check out the solution without using the attack map. (I only use the attack map to judge the closest point of approach anyway) The tool tip that pops up over the torpedo gyro angle dial on the TDC gives the relative bearing. If your range and speed are close to correct, over time this bearing will track the direction on the scope to the target. I check each time I raise the scope (as it's coming up I put it on the generated bearing) to see if my solution is lagging or leading the target. The error can be speed or range (or they might cancel each other out!) but I can usually tell how close my solution is. I've been shooting over 75% on the first shot unless I get all happy and fire before I'm confident in my speed and range!

@Drakken: Here's your solution there! It's nothing more than the Trigger Maru Keyboard layout, which is similar to the SH3 keyboard layout. Puts things on the function keys where you'd want them, especially including F6 is the attack map. I'm sure the attack map must be somewhere in their button bars. So here's my modded keyboard layout, stolen fair and square from TM, with shift-i for crew identify target for good measure.

@Frying Tiger that's gotta be the greatest handle in all forums! You're just the latest in a long line of people who tell me that I HAVE to make that attack map tutorial video. You are the last straw. Ima gonna do it. Dick O'Kane would beat me about the head if I didn't. Checking periscope bearings is only part of the puzzle. The attack map consolidates all of the puzzle in one place, giving you to tools for almost 100% probability of hitting that shot. Proviso: you need to have enough time!

So you've shamed me into it. I've been busy playing with my Ubuntu setup, marveling at how much more I enjoy everything but playing SH4 on it. When games start being published for Linux, watch out Bill Gates! Linux is definitely ready for your desktop.

Thanks, RR! I'll still test your Dick O'Kane technique later tonight, as in my current save game I know that there is a troop transport contact at a few hours distance. I'll arrive quite a few hours in front of his bearing, so I should be able to trace his range, calculate its speed, and plot a 90deg intercept course! :up:

Also, I have just read that the creators of RFB have integrated the "SCAF" mod, allowing the player to align the stadimeter angle-shooter to a more centralized location, rather than the highest mast. I don't know if the RFB+RSRD version has it included, however...

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the SCAF mod. It's way too easy for us to find the range of a target because our recognition manual has every ship in the ocean with fairly accurate measurements. Contrary to popular opinion, the Japanese Navy did not rent us the Akagi to take it to San Fransisco bay and measure the heights of all its masts, the length of the ship and take great pictures of. And they sure didn't rent us their merchants for the same purpose!

The fact is, our ONI manual was a by guess and by golly thing with a small subset of the ships likely to be encountered within its pages. If you found your target there, you could almost guarantee then information was wrong: wrong length, wrong masthead and cabin top heights, etc., because the Japanese knew what we knew. Then they changed funnels, altered mast heights, actually built scale model ships of larger ones so we would misidentify and get the range wrong by a factor of 3 or 4!

So you can see that the SCAF mod is THE OPPOSITE of the way we should be going. We sit around grousing about how we can get 100,000 tons in a cruise when very few subs did that during the entire wartime. Well, there's a large part of the answer. We cheat.

The real answer is to get rid of SCAF and introduce the Real Recognition Manual, with the exact crap our sub captains were forced to deal with in WWII. And watch those tonnage totals go down!:up::up::up::up::up::up::up::up:

This has been a paid announcement of the Dick O'Kane Targeting Company, seeking to cripple all other forms of targeting leaving players with no choice but to use the vastly superior Dick O'Kane targeting technique. There is method to our madness.

But then, if the information are always wrong in the ONI Real Recognition Manual, how could anyone use the stadimeter in-game to set the range in the TDC in the game? We'd need some sort of means to calculate the mast height, wouldn't we?

After all, if the mast height is always bogus in the Manual, thus the calculation becomes automatically erronous all the time, and the player will find him or herself totally unable to guesstimate range save by manually entering each digit of the estimated range (which is currently unfeasable over 1500 yards or meters via the stadimeter).

In short, the tool is rendered even more useless to the point now it would be best just to remove it from the game altogether and estimate the range with the ruler/compass and manually enter it in the TDC. As for my hydrophone listener I always seem to get more than the double of the real range when I ping the target with the sonar. :doh:

Well, as you probably know, that's exactly what were doing with RFB. As it turns out, the ONI mast/funnel/other height values were actually pretty accurate.

Regardless of whether it was accurate or not, that is exactly what we should have. I know that real captains who were caught without radar just assumed that meant they were going to waste half of their torpedoes. It should be no better for us.

Oh well, what's made up accurately in the ONI is most certainly offset with the number of faulty torpedoes around in the early part of the war. :yep:

Just a feedback after trying the Dick O'Kane technique: It was a success! Despite the fact I was probably too close from my target due to post-flank inertia. Two eels on three have smashed through the bow of the Small Passenger ship, and it sank almost immediately! :up:

Indeed, it is much easier to touch a target with this technique. However, if it doesn't sink or the torpedoes miss, one must be ready to resort to classical manual targeting. But since we are now quite closer to the target, it shouldn't be very hard to pursue the target! :ping:

Congratulations, Drakken on your great success. I'm one who says that there can be no such thing as being too close to the target unless you are too close for your torpedoes to arm.:arrgh!:

And please, NEVER limit yourself to one technique and say that's the best. The best technique is the one that will put the enemy on the bottom of the ocean now. It could be conventional, down the throat, Cutie on a Leash (although Ducimus seems to have nerfed Cuties in his latest release, making them relatively deaf), Dick O'Kane, up the poop chute or yet another technique that gives your success in any given situation. The more tricks in your bag of trick, the more successful you will be.