Okay I answered my own question. If I read the release notes right, Ducimus took SCAF out but he
did fix the mast heights, so as long as you stadimeter to the highest point on the ship you should get correct ranges? That's fine with me my problem with the exclusion of SCAF was that I wasn't sure if I still needed to measure to the highest funnel, or the mast, or whatever (the red lines helped tell you what you were supposed to measure) but with the new method as long as you measure to the highest point of the ship, be it funnel, mast, or flag, then you're good to go.
My last question, does anyone here think the water is
way too clear? I understand the part about being able to see the sub really deep from above, but in TMO 1.9 you can see the sub FAR too easily from the side as well. And, the transition from being visible to invisible from the side is way too sharp. If you look at the right angle, the front of the conning tower is visible plain as day through crystal clear water, but the rear of the conning tower dissapears into the water. That's too sharp of a transition. IMO it just does not look natural. I know there must be parts of the ocean that are actually this clear, but I think for most scenarios it is not accurate at all. I have never seen any photos depicting what is shown in the game. My old TMO1.7 did not have water this clear, and looked a lot better IMO. Also I tried RE4 out as well and they have god a very good balance of being visible from the air even when deep and providing a realistic amount of fade-away as you look from an angle or as you get deeper.
I want to change it out for a different set of water effects but am concerned about the effect it has on contact detection (friendly or foe). I am willing to accept some degradation of planes' ability to see you (would help make things a bit more fun too as I am not a pro skipper) in tradeoff for some more eye-candy. What exactly "breaks" when you swap in RE4 into TMO? I am guessing that since your sub becomes harder to see from above the water, it means that the AI aircraft will not spot you as often when you dive? But I am just guessing on that because I don't know much about the in-depth mechanics of contact detection. Is it possible just to import the "water shader" portion of RE4 which defines the underwater visibility as opposed to the whole package (textures, fog, etc), in order to minimize the impact?
I know it sounds like complaining I'm not trying to do that (TMO is a brilliant work!) but just trying to "flavor" it to taste
Norman