[gap]

tscharlii,
your graph, the calculations it is based on, and the few arbitrary assumptions you had to make, look perfectly plausible.

I have just a little amendment regarding SH5's "physical world horizon": IIRC, it is in a radius of ca. 40km from the player, not 30 as you are assuming. But this little mistake doesn't invalidate the rest of your reasoning. I wish to point you now to some of the parameters affecting hydrophone's efficiency in stock game. This is to make sure that you will take them into the due account; should you be already aware about the information below, please ignore it.

Configurable global parameters (data\Cfg\Sensors.cfg). They affect all the player's hydrophones (AI units' sensor parameters are found in data\Cfg\Sim.cfg, and are much more simplified):

Hydrophone range factor: how much target's range affects its detection by hydrophone

Hydrophone fog factor: how much fog affects hydrophone detection

Hydrophone light factor: how much darkness affects hydrophone detection

Hydrophone waves factor: how much rough seas affect hydrophone detection

Hydrophone speed factor: how much own speed affects hydrophone detection

Hydrophone enemy speed: how much enemie's speed affects its detection by hydrophone

Hydrophone aspect: how much a low profile offered by the enemy affects its detection by hydrophone

Hydrophone noise factor: how much surrounding noises affect hydrophone detection

Hydrophone sensor height factor: how much a low sensor height affects hydrophone detection

Hydrophone already tracking modifier: this is a bonus, making the hydrophone operator not to loose a contact which was already detected

Hydrophone decay time: this is the duration of the bonus, in seconds from the last detection

Hydrophone uses crew efficiency: (boolean) whether hydrophone detection will be affected by crew efficency or not

Numerical factor must be ≥ 0 and can be bigger than 1 (i.e. they are not percent values), even though most stock settings are comprised between 0 and 1. It is my understanding that the higher the settings, the worst is hydrophone's detection under the conditions described for each parameter. Indeed, some of the parameters (fog, light, aspect) are non-relevant for hydrophone detection and they are set to 0 in stock game: they are probably there for symmetry with other sensors. The meaning of other parameters which are also set to 0 in vanilla game is a bit obscure (namely: enemy speed, sensor height), and needs to be investigated, but again I suspect that they are designed to work for other sensors.

Individual hydrophone parameters (SensorData controller). They affect individually each player hydrophone or any other sensor which can be fitted aboard playable u-boats (another controller, obj_Sensor, is used for AI sensor, and as before its parameters are much more simplified):

SensorType: valid types are: 0 - visual, 1 - Radar, 2 - Sonar, 3 - Hydrophone, 4 - RadarWarning, 5 - RadioDF

PreciseRange: this is the range in meters within which sensor detection won't be affected by target's range

MaxRange: sensor's maximum detection range in meters. To my understanding, between PreciseRange and MaxRange target's detection chance is interpolated linearly.

MinHeight: min target depth/altitude in meters, for it to be detected

MaxHeight: max target depth/altitude in meters, for it to be detected

MinSensorHeight: min sensor working depth/altitude in meters

MaxSensorHeight: max sensor working depth/altitude in meters

Surface: Standard detectable surface at MaxRange (in square meters)

RPMDetLevel: Detection level as percentage of Maximum RPM (between 0 and 1). This is a bit tricky as it make a warship (with higher max RPM output) lesser detectable than a merchant travelling more or less at the same speed.

SweepPeriod: this is how long (in seconds) will take a 360 deg (bearing) sweep of the sensor.

SweepArc: I think this is the width (in degrees) that the sensor will be able to scan at each given moment; I ignore if it cam also affect sensors' bearing accuracy, but I doubt it.

ProbInsideArc: detection probability inside each SweepArc (between 0-1)

Revolving: (boolean) this is whether the sensor 3d model will revolve around its y axis during a sweep

SkipSweep: (boolean) whether the operator will skip invalid sector during sensor's sweep (see below)

Bearing (min, max): this let us to set valid bearing intervals (in degrees) within which sensor detection is possible. More than one interval can be set.

Elevation (min, max):this let us to set valid elevation intervals (in degrees) within which sensor detection is possible. More than one interval can be set.

That's all. As you can see, our current chances to customize hydrophones and other sensors are pretty much limited. In my opinion, the main limits are:

- inability to customize global parameters for each sensor.
- inability to customize sensors' accuracy (we should explore the SweepArc parameter though)
- inability to set different detection ranges and/or detection probabilities as a function of sensor's and targets' altitude/depth and of target's bearing.

TheBeast and XRundel have deviced a brilliant method to partially obviate some of the above limits: for their Repaired Equipment Mod, they have used more than one SensorData controller for each hydrophone, each set with different sensor depths and max detection ranges. This workaround is not exempt from flaws though: each controller must be placed in a precise order for the hydrophone not getting mute for the player below a certain depth; I and Volodya discovered it a while ago. Yet, after our fix the human player is not affected by detection range limits at varying depths, and he can always listen as far as the maximum set MaxRange. Moreover, detection ranges for the AI operator don't vary following a curve, but they "jump" from a level to the next one. A smooth depth/range curve could be simulated by using many conveniently set SensorData controllers, but I am afraid tha doing it could determine lagging or even worst problem.

This is really all for now. Keep up your brillian work

Originally Posted by plj

That's starboard We're not playing X3 here :p

I cant comment on the rest, tho it sounds very cool!