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Originally Posted by dc1962
I've been playing SH for a year, and am still somewhat at a loss for finding a good way of doing manual targeting. It is of course a challenge trying to do all the calculations without an officer to assist and the need to hit F-6 to input manually and shift away from the periscope view.
But the main problem remains gauging target speed and distance.
1) Is there a good way to measure speed, other than setting a parallel course and determining it that way, especially while submerged? I believe the u boats could get a ship’s speed by the counting the propeller rotations, is there a way of doing that in the game? Any other suggestions?
2) Having spent some time at sea, I am aware that one get’s experienced at judging distances, which is hard to duplicate in a game. But what are other ways to judge distance in SH? The interface using measuring mast height is always inaccurate for me. Can you use the periscope’s recital pattern like you would in a modern set of binos with the mil divisions to gain distance? If so how?
If this posted any where please let me know.
Thanks
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hi,
yes, there is a way to judge distances and speeds quite precisely, if you are able to use the hydrophone properly. i have been working with hydrophone intensively since 5 months so maybe I can give you some little advice. however, there is a couple of problems:
first of all, you didnt mention what type of game do you play (stock/GWX/NYGM). this is an important information because modded game doesnt allow you to count the RPM and determinate the distances. (some modders changed the original propeller sounds which made the original RPM charts useless...)
however, you can use the hydrophone and the charts if you replace the modded propeler sounds by the original ones (those are the files located in data/sounds finishing on "hyd.wav" , e.g. "cargo_hyd.wav", "oil_tanker_hyd.wav" etc.).
this will allow you to use the Greyrider and cpt. Nautilus RPM charts. they are located in the sound trainer readme file. you can download the sound trainer here:
http://www.subsim.com/subsim_files/patches2005.html#sh3
i like these charts but i have to warn you that they are not allways precise (according to my tests and my experience). but it is good for beginning.
problem No 2., you have to realize that even if you replaced the sound files, some supermods add new ships to the game (GWX: ore carrier, artillery barge, pyro ammunition ship...) and these new ships are not included in Greyriders RPM charts. so you cant count theirs RPM unless someone (you?
) create the new charts.
problem No 3, the propeler sounds are not specific for each ship. sometimes yes, but you have to be pretty skilled to discriminate small differences between sounds. when using the hydrophone, you can say what type of ship you intercepted but it is really difficult to say whether the contact is a small merchant or a C2. BUT - it is possible, if you are listening carefully. progressively, you can learn to discriminate almost all the sounds. but the new GWX ships make your task even more difficult because AFAIK, the GWX team did not add the new propeler sounds. (correct me if I am wrong). they just added the new ships and they made them to share theirs propeler sound with the other ships. that means, one propeler sound will now make you think about 4-5 ships......
for these reasons, me personally, i prefer the stock SH3. I am able to judge the speed of the contact quite precisely. (the distance too, although my calculations are approximative). however, it is accurate enough for a kill.
if you want to know more about the hydrophone tehcniques, try to find ALL the posts by Greyrider. you can find it on this forum. i was thinking about editing a hydrophone tutorial but I see that almost all kaleuns here are playing the GWX or some other supermod so I think it would be useless, especially when the sound propelers are changed and a lot of people doesnt use the hydrophone. besides this, the GWX allows you to use the sonar operator assistance (those black lines indicating the bearing to contact and the approximative range) with 100 percent realism so I think in GWX, there is no need to rely on hydrophone too much .
that said, I recommend you to start by making a test mission in the mission editor. place a ship in a specific distance, travelling at a specific speed and try to count the RPM and to judge the distance by compairing the sound of propeler to the sound of the hydrophone environment (background). this way, you can set some triggers that will tell you where the contact is. when the sound of the propeller overdrowns the background sound, i know that the contact is closer then 18 km. (be carefull, this can be different for everyone because we all hear in different way). it is up to you to set the triggers.
there is no time nor space for describing all this topic that but if you have a question, i am ready to help . good luck