Surfaced Sonar
 

I left Pearl in early '42 with a new Gato and RSRD. I found the hunting incredibly austere, to the point where I snuck into a harbor in Formosa and sank 5 ships. Then I started getting contacts reports suggesting a shipping route, and started down it. Still nothing on sonar, then a medium freigher loomed out of the fog dead ahead. A few days later in the Bungo Duido, I was able to confirm that I my sonar only worked when I was submerged.
I though RSRD only changed campaign stuff, not AI and sensors etc. Anyone have any idea if it's RSRD, or maybe the Gato?

Never tried RSRDC myself, but from what I understand some of the megamods try to get more realistic by disabling certain things - like the black / blue sonar contact lines on the map. Dunno if RSRDC does that, but one of the megamods you won't see the lines even if you have the map contact update cheat turned on.

Yes the megamods remove contact lines. Most of them do. Most of them also remove sonar abilities surfaced while some add it back in. Sonar could be used on the surface but only at slow speeds.

The game also has a bad habit of using the most recent and closest contact report as a means of showing the lines if they are still available. Meaning if your contact can be seen visually it stops showing up as a line on the sonar.

You can still go to the sonar station and listen and find the contact yourself however. Some, even submerged, will not show contact lines for sonar if the scope is up and the target is being shown visually.

Generic Mod Enabler - v2.6.0.157
1_TriggerMaru_Overhaul_2-5
1_TMO_25_small_patch
RSRDC_TMO_V502
RSRDC_V5xx_Patch1
Improved Ship Physics 2.6_TMO_RSRDC
TMO_Visuals_for_RSRDC
Fixed_CD_sonar_RSRDC
Classe_Balao_CamoTri
Pacific Sound Mod
Nav Map Make-Over v2.1
NMMO Airbase Add-on
NMMO v2.1 Patch 1 with AB
NMMO Maps Add-on
NMMO Pre Pearl Harbor Career Start Add-on
NMMO Reverse Ocean Colors Add-on
Less Plankton 1.2

Crannogman, you've not stated your mod list (except for RSRDC). If your using RSRDC v550 only (for the stock game.....no other mods activated with it) I can answer your questions.

Yes, RSRDC is thought to only add historical routes to the game.....it does a lot more. New ships, and planes are added. Configuration files are changed, so are data files.

To answer your question about the Gato (and most later model subs in RSRDC), the sensor file was changed from stock......having the "Ball" mount hydrophone (the one on the bottom of the hull used with newer subs) to require submerging before it works. That's not what it should do, but that's what it does. I'm guessing Lurker had his head filled with Operation Monsun and just forgot that American subs (outside of the S-Class, or a couple of the older class subs) didn't require the sub to be submerged when using a "Ball" mount sensor.

Here's the comparison of the Stock file on the left, RSRDC on the right:

http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps7cecfd48.jpg

RSRDC requires you to be 12 meters deep before the hydrophone works, when equipped with the hull "Ball" type of Hydrophone. A work around is to remove the "Sensors_sub_US.sim" (found in the Data/Library folder) file from RSRDC.

Regarding not "hearing" a ship even though it's within eyesight of your sub. RSRDC changes the ship route speeds many times in the span of a day. If you've ever opened up one of RSRDC's .mis files, you would see a multitude of way points added to the shipping routes, when compared stock. He has some dropping down to less than 1 knot, then maybe shooting back up to 7 knots on the next way point. The problem is, when your manning the Hydrophone station yourself, you won't hear the target ship as long as its speed is less than halve its MaxSpeed set in its .dat file. Say a ship has a maximum speed of 16 knots....you'll not hear it with the Hydrophone yourself if it's travel speed is 7 knots. This is a stock game issue, not something brought on by RSRDC. However, RSRDC doesn't help the issue by trying to set many of its travel speeds less than halve the ship's MaxSpeed.

Thanks Capn, that must be it. My other mods are the nav map 2.1, PE4, and natural sinking; however, RSRD is the only thing that I added between my last patrol and this. I'm guesing I'll have to be in port to fix that, no? I'm out of fish and 16 hours West of Midway, but I'm pretty sure getting to Pearl and back in 3 days is out of the question

Yes, remove that .sim file after you're back in port...between assignments. Instead of completly removing it, just rename it to something like "OLD_RSRDC_Sensors_sub_US.sim". Then you can always go back to it if you like.

Just to make it clear, if using JGSME you'll need to deactivate RSRDC, change the name or delete Sensors_sub_US.sim in the MODS folder, then re-activate it.


the "Ball" mount hydrophone (the one on the bottom of the hull used with newer subs)

Just for accuracy there were two, one on either side of the keel. Switch to external view and look up at the forward part of the sub in game.

IRL "flow noise" doesn't start to be a big problem until 10+ knots, best I recall it was something like a 1.8 decibel per knot increase above that. Didn't affect me since the AQS13 sonar I used was lowered from a hovering SH-3 Sea King with automatic stabilization equipment (an autopilot that kept the helo centered over the cable), zero knots = zero flow noise. :rock:

There were two because they did different functions.

Yeah I noticed those little doodads while I was sneaking around in the shadows; hadn't noticed them on my Tambor. Anyhow, thanks for the help. I'm not sure whether to restart this whole 8-week tour with the fix, or just sink some flattops and head back to Pearl.

Yes, there are two of these "ball" type sensors on the bottom of the hull. In real life, one was for the Sonar, the other was for the Hydrophone. In-game the stock Gato has only one of them linked to the two different sensor's function. It makes no difference, that isn't the problem. RSRDC's MaxSensorHeight=-12 is the problem.

Sniper is right, you must deactivate your RSRDC mod from the game before making any changes to it. And, you must deactivate your mod list, one at a time......starting at the last mod activated, then working back up the list order until you get to the main RSRDC mod. I forgot to tell you these things because I figure anyone who adds mods should already know the proper way of doing things!!

This is the answer to a question I have had for awhile now. Can we just change the -12 value to 0 instead of deleting or removing files?

Would you also suggest being in port in between patrols before doing this? Can this be done mid-patrol? Or will there be adverse effects like when you change anything else mid-patrol?

Yeah I know to remove the mod. It's just a question of whether to finish this patrol first; I think I will (rather than reload the leaving of port)

Using Silent 3ditor....just set the value for MaxSensorHeight to 0.0.

I would set it to zero for all four of the Hydrophone/Sonar sensors. With RSRDC those Nodes are the same as stock....starting at #47 and going to #53.

As far as changing it in mid-patrol.......I'd wait and do it after returning to port. Usually it's the UPC files that will really mess things up if you change them during a patrol......of course a .sim file IS NOT a UPC file, but I'd still wait to make the change to an on-going campaign.

Thanks for the input. :salute:

I never looked into what exactly is in the save game files, but I've found that some modifications will work after a save and reload, others require starting a whole new career. Can't hurt to try the hack in the middle of the patrol, if it don't "take" or crashes the game, restore the original file then try it while in port.