Originally Posted by h.sie
After a long period of silence I want to give a first report about my current work together with LGN1:
We have not finished yet and there is still some program work to do, but I'm slightly optimistic now that we can have some kind of wolfpack action and BDU interaction in sh3 in the future. It will not be perfect - only a compromise is possible:
After having discovered a convoy, you have to send a contact report to BDU. Depending on the time period (late war, early war) and the location (atlantic, pacific) and some random factors, the Fix calculates a chance that other UBoats are available to help you.
If no boats are available, the BDU answers that you have to do the attack alone. Good luck!
If other boats are available, BDU orders to shadow the convoy and send contact reports EVERY HOUR (according to the UBoot commanders handbook, the contact holder has to send "Peilsignale" every hour).
Your contact reports no more contain the exact course of the convoy calculated by sh3 engine. Instead, YOU have to measure the convoys course by yourself and adjust it in a TDC Dial. That value is sent together with the contact report and (sometimes but not always) influences the chance, that the other boats will be able to find the convoy.
(According to my research, wolfpack actions were chaotic and not organized well. So I programmed a lot of randomness. Also, some BDU responses will get lost. Times in BDU orders will be inaccurate. Some of your course measurements will affect the game behaviour, others not).
The time between your contact reports influences the chance that the other boats find the convoy. If you only send every 3 hours, the chance raises that the other Subs won't find the convoy. If that situation occurs, the BDU orders to attack alone. Good luck!
If, under certain circumstances, the other Uboats managed to find the convoy, the BDU waits until environment conditions are well (dark night? Fog? I don't know exactly ATM). Then, he orders to attack in X hours. But this X also is an inaccurate time, so maybe the other Boats start to attack a little bit earlier. It is also possible, that nothing happens at all. Maybe the other Uboats have been sunk? So there will be a lot of uncertainness - as in real life.
Since I still wasn't able to reengineer the AI routines in sh3, we still use a -modified- version of Sergbutos AI-Subs. So I fear the convoy battle itself won't look very realistic IF you follow it with the external cam (what also isn't realistic), because the escorts (sometimes) shoot at the AI-Subs with their deck guns. So my suggestion is simple: Don't use the external cam - real kaleuns also didn't use it. But the AI-Subs will do their job:
* deflect/sink some convoy escorts so that you have a good chance for your own attack.
* sink some merchants so that it really looks like a battle when looking through the periscope.
* we are no more alone on the ocean.
I played a mission yesterday with an early alpha version, and as I saw all these burning and sinking merchants in the dark night, the searchlights and distress signal rockets, through the periscope, I remembered the film "Das Boot", and I must admit that I was satisfied for some seconds (knowing this is only a game and nobody really died).
h.sie
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