Still REALLY struggling after years!
 

Hi all - coming from the old 688 days, I had a great time.. But i just have the HARDEST time getting anything done in this game which ive owned for over a decade.

I get so dismayed that I just stop playing for a year, 2 or even 3 - then pick it up again and hit the same wall.

(can someone perhaps write down a short bullet list of initial things they do to track / confirm contacts? For me, i deploy the towed array about half way cos i usually cruise around 10kts unless its shallow or dangerous - then 5kts and a shorter array, super short if i need to be near the bottom).

Then I do a turn to remove duplicate contacts - problem is assigning trackers gets soo confusing, i have o basically tma each contact (or match blades/narrowband/demon to confirm vessel and type)..

and I go in circles getting lost basically..

I have read all the stickies, guides i can possibly find. I also know the TMA method in 688 was incorrect and that took me a long time figure out.

Ive done many kills in 688 and read the book about 10 times so familiar with the concepts.

I just dont know what the heck im missing -

Esp the multiple contacts on the broadband (i know i know, use narrow band) - but the broadband just have a longer range..

Im going to play the first mission today on the huge screen with a remote keyboard/mouse and let you all know what happens.

I LOVE this game - but im just terribly bad at finishing up things. on 688 i did pretty well- just not DW..

welcome back!
 

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Hello there. What are you cruising around in at 10 knots? Depends of course on your playing style (fast and nimble or slow and stealthy), but if you like slow and stealthy, 10 knots is pretty fast (again, depending on the boat - for an LA, it's too fast, for a Seawolf or Virginia, probably not). Most missions are set up with the enemies in the slow and stealthy mode, so they might be hearing you first. Also, are you playing with any mods?

For the towed array, I'd recommend putting it only about 25 - 33% deployed (unless you're doing fancy stuff like dipping it beneath the layer). You don't gain any more sensitivity past that point and it just takes longer for the towed to turn to your new course when you turn. And of course if you're on an American boat, make sure you're using the TB-23 in slow and stealthy situations (it's the starboard towed in the stock game).

The bold face text here will come into play later. But looking at the broadband, you can tell which tracks are real and which are fake if you've already done some turns with the tracks on there.

What does this mean?

I have noticed this in my 688(I) Hunter/Killer youtube playthrough that the broadband has a further range than the narrowband for some reason. This is not true in Dangerous Waters or physically, even. Narrowband looks for specific frequencies which can be detected from much further away than the general noise of broadband. You should definitely be scanning for new contacts on the narrowband. The narrowband will also tell you what's a cruise ship or a trawler or a container ship - things you'd like to know the general location of but that you don't need to waste your time on doing TMA.

I hope this helps!

tx shazly, sorry i mis typed..

i usually first try spehrical for a faint contact on broadband.. then i check demon for number of blades to determine sub/surface, then narrowband to id it..

after that i switch to towed, make a turn - eliminate mirrors and id them via narrow..

even just the silent recon missions.. i just have to keep at it.

I did do alot of TMA on 688 using tpk and locking that, lining up dots etc so quite comfortable with that but sometimes i think i get duplicate contacts from sonar to towed that are close and have a hard time knowing if its the same one or not, esp if narrow band shows different signals overlapping - even more confusing when u have clusters :/

No problem!

So, you need to find tracks on the towed's narrowband first. The spherical's broadband is going to be one of the last ways you detect a track - usually too late to be of any use (remember, this doesn't apply to 688(I) Hunter/Killer. Narrowband > broadband is for Sub Command and Dangerous Waters). Narrowband is better for searching for the reasons I gave before and because the towed has a further detection range than the spherical because the towed detects lower frequencies, which travel further than high frequencies.

Also, you should trust your TMA to give you a target's speed. DEMON should be used more as a check against your solution than the basis. If you have a faint track, you won't see all the blade lines in DEMON and that will give you a false positive on what you're tracking. In addition, you need to have a broadband track to get DEMON data and if you're tracking a sub, waiting to get DEMON on it (i.e., waiting to get a broadband track) will usually happen much too late in tracking the target to be helpful. You're going to have to guess different speeds in the solution to find the correct one - of course using your intuition that the vast majority of submarine contacts, for example, will be going under 10 knots.

So it sounds like you really just need to revise your workflow order. It should be towed narrowband first and then when you get the broadband track, you can use that to determine the contact's direction if you haven't already and verify speed.

Multiple towed tracks are a pain in the ass, yes. But if you're going against a single target, it's usually not too bad. But tracking any kind of strike group or fleet can be a royal pain. Feel free to let the autocrew sort through that mess! You're the captain first :03:. Doing TMA and determining who is real and fake does require a lot of maneuvering, unfortunately, unless you can sync up tracks from the spherical or conformal. But please be careful doing that as it can be hard to realize if you've merged the wrong tracks. I recommend developing all sierras of interest into separate solutions first, then see if they line up closely on the nav map before merging.