Quote:
Originally Posted by Dogfish40
Absolutely! If the sea is just a bit rough, you can't set the torpedo to run too deep for the usual reasons. This being the case, every once in a while the fish might actually break the surface where it has the most chance of gaining error as it dives back into the next wave. You know what I mean, the fish is riding next to an unstable surface, it has to take a hit now and again from wave effects. I would imagine that this accounted for a lot of misses from torpedoes that were aimed dead on.
My only comment would be that it should be pretty random, not something you would want to have happen too much. It would give you one more thing to consider before taking that safe long shot.
Perhaps you could make the chances of this happening go up a percentage with distance.
D40
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Yes but there is some thing you need to keep in mind. A random error value will not improve your torpedo skills, not even a fraction of a percent will it improve your torpedo firing skills. It will not only not do that but its theoretically impossible to gain firing skills from a random error value. Your skills will be exactly the same before and after the patch. The only thing this patch will give us, is "Ah, I missed, thats not too boring, I like that". But there is absolutely nothing to gain from it, your skills will be the same as before BECAUSE you cannot improve your skills on random values, so your skill is already peaked (the best you can get) before the patch is applied. In fact, the patch will make you a worse torpedoman, believe it or not. When you hit a ship in a place you didnt intend to, you have no idea if that was because of drifting or if it was because of your bad math preparations, you will mess up things and become a worse torpedoman and have no idea which part needs improvement.
So based on this idea, if you want to measure your torpedo firing skills, you would have to measure it without this future patch, because random values will mess up the test results. And even if the torpedo is going somewhat straight, that still doesn't matter, there are plenty of people who still need to practice this, they hit either on the bow or stern or a mix of these, some people actually miss. The whole skill is in the process of preparation, not the line that the torpedo follows. So you need to get things straight and get your ideas straight.
If a similar idea was implemented by a professional software company and not by 3rd party developers, they would have taken a different step, they would have made some sort of an artificial "corridor", perhaps with a colored circle around to show you how some sort of visual picture of how the seas is in front of you, and you need to use that in calculating the path, to create a more challenging game. Sort of an opposite way of doing it.
But to implement random error values is just a waste of time, its like implementing the lottery into a predictable system, the lottery will only create an uncertainty factor which will always be different and unpredictable every time, you cannot train yourself further by implementing that, no firing skill gain.
You could however find a system with constants, predictable constants to have the game more challenging. Perhaps a very tiny array of different constants for the rough seas, I don't know exactly how this would be implemented and its not well thought out, and I don't actually support it either, I'm against the whole thing.
but then if you do that, if you have 10 constants in an array, each constant is a unique random error value, this list must be generated every time the game starts. But Its important that the constants are used in a pre-defined order so that he have a chance to familiarize himself with the 10 error values. Even though only 10 error values are far from being near of simulating rough seas, you could have 10 different levels of rough seas, its better than nothing at all. But then again, im against the whole thing. I think I said that.
And even if you did what I suggested, it would not actually make you a better torpedo man even with that, it would only add another annoying layer to the whole scheme. I think the game is already time consuming based on all the things that needs to be done, so for the third time, im against all of that. hehe.
Test your firing skills without random values, then afterwards you can apply the random mod to it and make bets of which way it will turn, but that doesn't gain you anything at all. Your skills is only measured by the basic parts and constants that make up a system. The rest (all random) adds uncertainty and is always a gamble. In fact, if you hit a ship, you might just have missed the ship if the patch was not applied at all, it may have been all luck. And IF it was luck, IF you ought to have missed the ship without the patch, then you would get success based on bad torpedo firing skills. The point is that the entire preparation that you do before firing a torpedo would be rendered useless, as you can no longer measure which parts was bad and which was good. It depends on how huge a number is used for error values. If it is a significant error value, it gets harder to judge where you need to improve yourself. This is why I would go for an array of constants based on how rough the seas are, so that you can watch the seas from the conning tower and then instinctively know which error constant will be used. To be honest, I dont think this error value was that much present, if not present at all during the war. The only place I know for sure it was present was when airplanes dropped torpedo on top of a wave, the wave peak top could set the torpedo off course.
Anyway, I hope it will be part of the general patcher, so that people can choose if to use it.