What do you think about the destroyer AI?
 

I just started the war supplies patrol in Happy times. And only once i have been DC,d by detroyers and this was on my first mission after the tutorial. After that the destoryeres never really bothered to find me. I had many situations where i attacked a well protected convoy and when the eels started hitting the enemy hulls the detroyers sometimes to and sometimes dont come looking for me. If they do come looking for me they are way off target and 9 out of 10 times they dont even bother dropping depth charges. I can stay at periscope depth without silent running without ever getting caught. On one occasion is attacked on the surface at night and fired the torps and dove away. The destroyers came looking but it was just wat to east to get rid of them. What are your experiences? Is the AI this bad?

The AI shouldn't always know where you are. If they don't know where you are, they won't drop DCs. What would you like them to do? It's a big ocean :DL.

EDIT: One thing they could do is to detach a couple of destroyers for sweeping, and try to keep you down.

From what I have seen of their abilitys so far... and admittedly thats not much... there not very good.

I saw a pair of DD's firing rounds of machine gun ammo into the water once :haha:

Wasent even close to where I was and I was submerged. No idea what the heck they were doing.

I have yet to be depth charged. In fact the only 'deaths' I have is from running into other ships / land at high TC. :88)

They can now fire machine guns at periscopes, where before they couldn't. If they are firing at the water, I think it's because they thought they saw a contact there. This implies DDs can pickup false contacts. It's not all about you anymore, as there are AI subs to deal with too. Death by TC is quite annoying, especially when you can't get the backspace key to respond...

From what I have seen so far, it is not bad, when they detect you they will attack.

The issue from what I can see so far is that their passive/active sonar detection range is a bit on the weak side. This will have to be tweaked when we have a better idea of how it works. Ducimus has already done some work in this area.

SH5 is supposed to have special scripts governing AI reaction. Has anyone seen this?

Has anyone seen AI escorts firing on each other? I remember this used to be an issue in SH3.

I guess i,m just longing for some das boot moments though. I mean it gets kind of boring getting away with it every single time. I could provoke them offcourse but that isnt realisic.

Yes.

Well, the U-boats best shot was when they were undetected. If they got detected before they attacked, the convoy would turn away and it would scupper their plans - this happens in game now and is a huge improvement! It's also been written by sub commanders that the best way to get away was to strike first and cause confusion in the convoy and slip away whilst they were in a mess. It was when they weren't the first to strike that things got hot.

I know what you mean about the 'Das Boot' moments, but sadly my experience of DCs in SH3 and SH4 stock was that they either tickled you, or destroyed you and there wasn't much in between.

I dont know yet, but if they aint any better than the air forces the British are in real trouble.
All up and down the east coast I sailed for four days, and we spotted aircraft at least three times each day and they either didnt see us, or were too chicken to come down and take us on. Several flew straight overhead and yet flew on without firing a shot or coming in for a closer look.

care to provide some details? I'm curious. :ping:

Try this. If thats too much, then try the slightly kinder version here.

[Excuse the interruption] Totally OT: but I clicked the link in your sig Ducimus. Excellent, that guy reminds me of Charlie Brooker, only slightly less acerbic. (OK a lot less) Very nice vid. :up:

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*** POTENTIAL SPOILER! DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE AI! ***

There is AI code for operation plaster, pineapple, raspberry and creep attacks. I haven't checked to see if it all functions as it should, but I'm looking at it. I want to get ships to slowdown or stop to assess damage (I've got them to stop, but making them start up again will need some thought). Also, looking to see if I can do any realistic AI ASW, so they act intelligently, rather than relying on boosting their sensors.

>>rather than relying on boosting their sensors.

That would be ideal. My way of making the ai more "intelligent" is old school and needs to go the way of the dinosaurs.

The destroyers also seem to reluctant to ping me even though they are passing over me direcly. I dont really want to boost there sensors because i,m affraid that would unbalance the realism. I just want them to behave as much as possible in real life. One more thing i noticed is that when my scope is spotted my merchents the destoyers do check it out and sometimes they dont. And if they do they dont charge to my scope like in sh-3 but they do so at 2 knots or so.

Never was attacked by a DD, sailed right next to them and waved HI.:shifty: