Periscope View - Target Decay Rate
 

I play with map contacts on as to me this represents by crews view. In attack mode however, I as the Kapitan peering through the attack periscope only has eyes on the target. When you shift from the periscope to the map view you can see the target. When you lower the periscope and jump to the map view you still see the target for a period of time as it gradually decays.

Is there a way to increase this map view decay rate ? I adjusted something on my old PC which accelerated the decay rate to around 10 seconds but I cannot figure out what I did. I've fiddled with the sensor.cfg file to no avail. Right now on my new PC it's around 40-45 seconds.

I do not want to see the ship in map view when I jump over from the attack periscope as I want to plot the target based on my own observations.

Thanks in advance fo r any suggestions.

Dave

welcome back!
 

I'm sorry, I have no answer for your question, but don't you think it should be better to play with no map contacts at all?

I don't want to be teacher's pet, indeed I used to play with map contacts ON till one month ago. That day I decided to try the realistic way and... well, I have to admit that it's harder but much more satisfying and I think I'll never go back to the "easy" way.

Just give it a try, you'll never regret.

The realistic way is with a crew of 7-9 people working on the problem. You have a captain, three seamen, a weapons officer, a navigator, a helmsman, a radio officer, and a sonar officer all helping you to plot stuff on maps and take observations.

What exactly does the weapons officer do on your boat anyway? Does he just gaze blankly into space the whole time, or does he smoke a few reefers while you pretend he doesn't exist and cannot help you with the problem?

The captain is in the conning tower manning the periscope, far from the plotting chart. The U-boat had no such thing as a "Weapons Officer". The 1WO, or Erster Wachoffizier, did the plotting, with the aid of the Obersteurmann, or Navigator (actually Senior Quartermaster would be a better term). That's about it. The crewmembers mentioned above would have no room to stand around the plotting table.

This matter comes up frequently in SH4, and the same considerations apply.

In RL, most of the critical tracking work (plot, observations, op of TDC or related equipment) was probably done by 3 or 4 people. That number was necessary in RL, but the game is less demanding, and we can pause it, without difficulty. People like to say that the map-contacts are "realistic" because the skipper wouldn't do the chore of plotting himself. They focus entirely on who is doing the task, while ignoring how it is done. Was any real-life crew ever able to plot enemy positions with 100% accuracy, and do this in real-time? Using map-contacts makes the skill of the player/ observer largely irrelevant. Players routinely obtain tonnages far in excess of what RL skippers could get. I think it should be easy to see why.

I use the 'Assisted Plotting Mod'. It uses the map updates function to make a realistic depiction of the target ship. No ships appear on the map unless you identify it first, and then it will be the only ship that appears. Extremely functional. I use it and I don't even do manual targeting.

Lots of people say you should turn map contacts off because it's more realistic. Well, no, it's not more realistic. Both methods are unrealistic. Yes, perhaps it's true that no real watch officer can tell you that the ship is 3400 m away and be within 50 meters all the time. However, until someone develops a subsim that permits multiple players to use the same sim at the same time (one on the map, one on the scope, one on the hydrophone, and all relaying information that can be plotted on the map) then map contacts is the way to go.

After all, we're playing a game. We're not actually simulating a u-boat. If you want realism, you should be in a machine that pitches to and fro when the seas are rough, and the TC should be set rigidly to 1, just as in real life.

ok, you're right. Maybe I should have used the word "difficulty" instead of "realism" but the same word "realism" is used by Sh3 in the options panel (I wouldn't start a crusade for that).

I don't care how you call it, I think that if you turn your map contats off you will get more satisfaction from tracking and sinking a ship.
It's more difficult (NOT impossible), sometimes it's frustrating, but at the end you'll be rewarded for your efforts.

I say it again, I used to play with map contacts but now I switch this option off... and I like it.

if both methods are 'unrealistic' (and i agree) then why you don't shut down both of them ? the first (map updates) can be discarded via sh3 options and the second (the watch officer) can be simply not asked for giving you informations.
after the aboves,the whole thing is getting way more challenging and interesting for many players

in my opinion ,if one of the two is used then the game is losing all the fun of manual targeting which is one of the hottest points for a large amount of players.

the good thing with sh3 is that it is all your choice how to play your game so everyone can find a way which is suitable for him

I think we are all in violent agreement that no matter how you play the game it's not realistic.

I will simply say that map contacts on vs. map contacts off is a huge, huge difference in difficulty. With map contacts on, you hardly have to actually look through the periscope at all. When your scope is up, all the little ship icons within visual range politely parade across the map for you in real time. You can even see which ones are big and which ones are small, and even pick out warships, all from the icons presented. You can easily draw lines through the columns of the convoy and position yourself for a perfect intercept. It's basically arcade radar/god's eye.

With map contacts off, you will spend most of the game making visual contact and then plotting angles and ranges from your location on the map to give an estimate to target. On the surface, if you have not disabled or crippled it, your WO will give you exact bearing and ranges to the nearest target. But as soon as you submerge you're on your own, unless you have sonar.

It's my opinion that map contacts off gives the game a far more challenging feeling of approximation.

Steve

Makman, h.sie's patcher has an option which causes the WO and WP range estimates to be rounded off. The longer the base range, the greater the rounding uncertainty. At 10 km, the range is only accurate to the nearest km. While not as challenging as having to estimate the range yourself in all cases, IMO getting an approximate range from the crew reflects historical practice. But that, as you correctly state, is just my perspective. I don't mind having a crew to do the things the crew did historically - I just don't like that they do them perfectly and instantaneously.:O:

hi BigWalleye,

yes i know about H.sie's option but i didn't post everything i know on this theme for avoiding an ...endless post. if the discussion was about to be continued on this ,for sure this (and more options availiable) can be mentioned.
H.sie's option is , with no doubt, a big addition for the gameplay becuase i totally agree (thats only my point of view) with you that a deadly accurate Watch Officer is totally imersion killer. so , for those that their technique is containing Watch Officer assistance , H.sie made for them the better could be done!

i remember long time ago there was a discussion about the weapon officer assistance if it is cheat to use it or not. to tell the truth , i never understood these kind of dilemmas,i was always a fan of spirit ''more options the best''. for me ,it is better to have them all and to depends from user what to use or not.that way ...''customization'' is making the game interesting for more amount of people. (in my example, if you don't like WO to make the firing solution for you ,simply don't use the...button. or-more advanced- if you have some knowledge on menu_ini editing ,just remove the button off screen.if you like the button ,just use it so everybody is huppy)

Makman, this may be heading OT, but I (and others too, I'd bet) would really like to know more about some of those other ways to reduce the certainty of the game - mods, gameplay tricks, whatever. Please expand! If you feel it is too OT, could you maybe start another thread on the subject? Thanks.

Here's the uncertainty for all you magnetic torpedo hounds. In real life the ship depth was heavily dependent on the cargo it was carrying. Submarine captains and watch officers had to determine how heavily laden the ship was to determine how deep to set the torpedo. Ships that had already unloaded some cargo or that were carrying extra cargo had different depths.