i can see i am liable to end up being the "lone voice in the wildneress" again on the sensor edits-- but it's allways good to have an alternative point of view on gameplay--so here goes i'll hold my ground--
i set my maximum hydrophone distances to stock--and set the minimum hydrophone distances to 1000 metres---
(same wierd set of cfg entrys as before)
found a convoy (again in full career mode campaign play)
and got into position ahead of it--- submerged-at silent- at around 7000 metres the green sub went orange---at around 4000 metres it went red--"we have been etc etc" and it stayed full on red ALL THE TIME---
two DD's came racing out from the head of the convoy to investigate
made numerous close DC runs -- but they were obviouslya little confused by their sensor readings-- the attacking DD lost any hydrophone contact at 1000 metres and was relying on the more distant DD's for up-dates--
and even tho the little red sub remain full on red i was able to shake them--i headed gradually into the convoy and was constantly being harried and DC'd by escorts and constantly being able to shake them again--
here's something very VERY good i can say with some certainty--the AI is very VERY clever indeed---when given something to actually think about --it does actually think about it--it's not a complete slave to it's sensor readings ---
i was really pleased to see that as the attacking DD came close- beacuse it lost hydrophone contact with me at such a long range --it instead of making one DC drop -- it made three DC drops-- along the line of it's last hydrophone contact--- and it didn't react to any turns i made during it's final run (which takes care of that issue or offers some thing to think about at least)
it was fascinating to watch the DD's varying their DC drops to try to compensate for the lack of precise information on my exact position--
not just the one DC drop per run--as is usual
three entirely seperate drops on the same run---
and this wasn't predictable --one DD would consider that it had a good enough contact to drop his full load in one go--another would be more tentative and spread his load over two or three drops during the same run--a good three or four seconds passing between each seperate drop--
another would break of at the last second and not make a drop at all--
all the time the DD's were (in gameplay terms at least) exhibiting very human confusion as to which DD's sensor readings were the most accurate-- the problem being for them that the more distant DD's had better sensor contact that the closer ones--
sometimes the distant ones would allmost appear to get fed up and charge in to make a attack of their own---
i was caught well and truly napping by this tactic- i wacthed a corvette line up for it's dc run then steam right over head without dropping--- so i didn't maneuver thinking i was safe for the moment--i didn't spot the Clemson hurtling in at 24 knots ahead of me from distance -- and he did make a dangerous DC drop-- this dance kept up for a good hour or so---totally unpredictable -- even using the external camera i wasn't able to tell which DD i should be the most worried about--yet they were still working as a team --they had no choice- and even tho they were struggling a lot with the blind spot in their hydrophones- their tactics were not unintelliegnt - challenging and to my satisfaction allmost entirely HUMAN LOL!!!
meaning i was having to do some GENUINE thinking of my own ,not just roleplaying being uber commander of the month lol--all in all the most entertaining and human encounter with a set of convoy escorts i've ever had in a sub sim--
my main concern as this progresed was that i wouldn't be able to escape completely from the encounter---the long distance semi uber hydrophone becoming another catch 22--but i needn't have worried--
because the DD's have their traditional blind spot directly behind them -as the convoy got further away this blind spot natural gets larger and larger--
untill quite naturally even tho i had two clemsons and a corvette coming and going making dc runs at close range -- the little red sub went back to green and stayed that way--- and the DD's one by one left the attack and went back to the convoy ( the distant DD's whoose hydrophone contacts were providing the information for the attacks now being far enought away for me to comfortably find their blind spot ( and the retresting DD's steaming at flank away from me enabled me to place myself in their blind spot as their hydrophones came on line at disatnce--
problems--?
one--no pinging--dunno why--
thoughts on this--
no pinging-- at all-- either the DD hydrophones CAN DETECT DEPTH-- pretty disasterous stuff ---or the games use of the pinging sound and "enemy is pinging us" warning is slightly unreliable--how else could they have known my depth--( and they did know it)
on the gameplay side--and IMO- in normal campaign gameplay--
you steam out of port-- and can spend 3 or 4 hours even at maximum time excelleration finding and getting into position on a convoy--
another hour or even two conducting the attack--(at the least)
and another hour or so getting back to port
so it's quite often a major investment of time to conduct a career patrol--- do we really want to spend all that time and not have a bit of fun with the DD's?
what ever edits we make we need to remember that the events were testing for - the peformance of the DD's et al are normally going to be experienced by the average player in the context of their campaign
careers--- i prefer to get detected id don't care if it's "arcade" ive just spent four hours finding this dang convoy and it had better be worth the effort gameplay wise- lol!!