Manual or automatic ?
 

I'm wondering what most people are using ? manual or automatic targetting ? Myself i like to use manual, sinking a ship with me having plotting it perfectly is a great feeling, but i have way more succes with automatic.

First automatic for the first few years of playing
Then manual for a couple of years
Now thinking maybe going back to automatic

It's a bit like a U-boat commander. At the beginning of his career he would be totally reliant on his trainers telling him what to next. Then he would learn everything, to be able to do everything by himself, in theory and in practices. And then as a commander, he would delegate much of the work load to his officers.

Yeah. Full manual requires way too much input from boat commander (me). Not historically accurate. But automatic requires like zero input and is always accurate and waaay too fast.. I'd love to have an appropriate level of crew help, and have their accuracy based on skill level (plus my own input). But that would take a whole new game.

I was thinking that the crew gain some exp and have skill lvl ? Aint that showing on the targetting ?

I have Manual turned on, but also Weapons Officer Assistance. It gives a snapshot of the data at the given moment, but doesn't update the information. This means I have to raise the periscope repeatedly, giving the enemy a realistic chance of spotting it. It also means that there is a possibility of error.

Just my personal habit. :sunny:

Perhaps I could turn weapon officer shooting solution on, and enter the number s into my phone to get randomized values. Then feed the numbers into TDC manually. I could use different randomization values as the crew gets more experienced. That way I could even simulate a Topp as first officer - or Bernard... Man, it would hurt if SH3Commander would transfer away my Topp and give back a Bernard as a replacement!

H.sie's patch places accuracy restrictions on the WO range numbers. Does that also apply or the WP? If so, maybe we could place similar restrictions on AOB and speed inputs too. Say, nearest 10° for AOB and speed to 1/2 (or even full) knot.

My thinking is his data would only be accurate enough to hit if you're close (under 3000m IMO).

The other idea I had was to crank up the torpedo failure percentage on H.sie's patch and lower it as your crew gains experience.

T

There exists a very nicely designed and mostly neglected add-on for SH called Tracking Party 1.1. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=4236 It does all the calculations and plotting the tracling party would do. It has an option to specify tracking party efficiency, which affects both the accuracy of the solution and the virtual game time the tracking party takes to generate it.

The reason it is neglected is that it runs asynchronously. You have to ALT-TAB out of SH to run it, then hand-enter the solution. Still, it's a nice piece of work. Might be an alternative to the hand calculator.

It sure does. From h the readme.pdf from V16B1-Patch-Kit:

That would only need editing hsie.ini. Change one number and that's it :ping:

Thanks for pointing this add-on out! It seems to be just what I would need. I don't mind Alt+Tab, as I play windowed with InfiniteScreen anyways. The program lets me change the window and still keep the message bar of SH3 visible. I do lose sound when I'm out of the game, but the game keeps running on the background, and if something happens, it will tell that in the message bar.

sublynx, if you try Tracking Party, could you please post your experience with it? I have toyed with it, but never used it operationally.

No problem. I'll probably try using it on my next patrol, or maybe at the training mission.

Since I have zero math skills, I always use automatic.

I always use manual, I have tried it both with and without map contact updates... And I would like something in-between so I will try out the Assisted Plotting mod in my next career.

Manual targeting involves no math. It does involve some geometry. Just like, and about as much as, playing pool involves geometry. You have to be able to visualize the angles. And you have to get the right information into the TVR - range, speed, AoB. The TVR does all the math for you. That's what it's there for. It even calculates the lead angle for you. (Wish my shotgun did that!) All you do is aim and shoot!

There are procedures you have to use to find the range, speed and AoB. But in the stock game, and with most GUIs, these do not require any use of math on the player's part. It's just a bunch of mouse clicking and dragging. There's a gadget to measure range, another to measure speed, and the Mark 1 Human Eyeball to guess at AoB. That last one is a learned skill (again, like tha angles in pool). But it's not mathematical and there are various training aids around. You absolutely, positively don't have to do any math to use manual targeting.

Assisted Plotting is good. It bridges between the God's-eye view and having to do all the work yourself. But it is still a kludge. The sub commander didn't do any plotting during an approach. He had crew for that. The problem is that our crews are infallible and instantaneous.

The Approach Officer wasn't even in the same compartment as the plotting party. He was either on the bridge at the UZO station or in the conning tower at the periscope. At both locations, he could not even see the plot. The approach party would check the agreement between the plot and the TVR (which was set independently from the Approach Officer's observations) and would alert the Approach Officer if there was a discrepancy.

Unfortunately, we either have superhuman crews or no help at all. Assisted Plotting helps alleviate that, especially when coupled with h.sie's WO and WP Range Inaccuracy Fix. But it still doesn't let you function as the Kaleun should during an approach.