SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - RFB, Accurate Manual Targeting and Realism

tater · 01-07-09, 05:53 PM

Except that the stadimeter mast height was a GUESS in RL. The mast height SHOULD be one of those many possible errors, IMO.

I completely agree that it always being off is undesirable since sometimes a skipper might guess right. In the random stats I posted, 1 of the 15 attacks had the skipper picking the right target for sure. If ONI was right on the ODD mast height compared to reality, then THAT attack should have had an accurate mast height for sure. The other 14? Random. 1 was close to the right tonnage, and presumably coding, so maybe that had a similar height mast. The other 13 attacks would only have had the height right by pure luck since the target sizes were grossly misestimated in many cases.

A better solution would be to have the rec manual give NO mast heights, and have a series of dummy entries for mast heights in the recmanual. You then have a printed rec manual that only gives ranges for the mast heights for merchants (ie: "50-65'"), and one value for warships, but offset from the game mast height by the same % the ONI was off the RL ship (if it was). So if the RL height of a BB was 123', and ONI said 113', but the in-game ship is 140', then the game manual should say 128.6' so it's off the same amount.

We make the PDF manual such that there are loads of extra merchant ships, too. We also completely dump the pictures of ships taken from the game, and use crappy line drawings. We make some clones and alter them, too. Some of the ships in the manual will look close, but won't actually be in the game. If the ONI for the game ship is off, then it is also off in the pdf.

If you want to be more accurate than the manual, estimate deck heights, etc, and use the dummy mast height entries instead.

That'd be cool.

The simple reality check was mentioned already. Look at tonnages sunk by players using RFB/RSRDC—complete with flawed mast heights—and compare to reality. If players sink more than RL, then it's not a hardship. If the wrong mast heights result in lower tonnages than RL, then they need fixing.

BTW, I agree that manual targeting is NOT realistic. The player should make observations, and his junior officers should plot it for him. The automagical system of contacts on is also not realistic since it's 100% accurate. With those on and updating, you can shoot from the plotting map without ever looking out the scope in fact. Easily.

01-07-09, 05:53 PM	#17
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	Except that the stadimeter mast height was a GUESS in RL. The mast height SHOULD be one of those many possible errors, IMO. I completely agree that it always being off is undesirable since sometimes a skipper might guess right. In the random stats I posted, 1 of the 15 attacks had the skipper picking the right target for sure. If ONI was right on the ODD mast height compared to reality, then THAT attack should have had an accurate mast height for sure. The other 14? Random. 1 was close to the right tonnage, and presumably coding, so maybe that had a similar height mast. The other 13 attacks would only have had the height right by pure luck since the target sizes were grossly misestimated in many cases. A better solution would be to have the rec manual give NO mast heights, and have a series of dummy entries for mast heights in the recmanual. You then have a printed rec manual that only gives ranges for the mast heights for merchants (ie: "50-65'"), and one value for warships, but offset from the game mast height by the same % the ONI was off the RL ship (if it was). So if the RL height of a BB was 123', and ONI said 113', but the in-game ship is 140', then the game manual should say 128.6' so it's off the same amount. We make the PDF manual such that there are loads of extra merchant ships, too. We also completely dump the pictures of ships taken from the game, and use crappy line drawings. We make some clones and alter them, too. Some of the ships in the manual will look close, but won't actually be in the game. If the ONI for the game ship is off, then it is also off in the pdf. If you want to be more accurate than the manual, estimate deck heights, etc, and use the dummy mast height entries instead. That'd be cool. The simple reality check was mentioned already. Look at tonnages sunk by players using RFB/RSRDC—complete with flawed mast heights—and compare to reality. If players sink more than RL, then it's not a hardship. If the wrong mast heights result in lower tonnages than RL, then they need fixing. BTW, I agree that manual targeting is NOT realistic. The player should make observations, and his junior officers should plot it for him. The automagical system of contacts on is also not realistic since it's 100% accurate. With those on and updating, you can shoot from the plotting map without ever looking out the scope in fact. Easily.