[heartc]

What is simply missing in this game is a historical "bearing only" transmission method.
If the devs don't implement this (and looks like they don't cause they consider it minor, though it should also be a minor fix) then they didn't really quite understand the TDC.

The irony is that they probably designed it the way they did because they thought to make the data gathering process easier by combining 2 steps into 1: When you send range, you also send bearing. But in fact they made it more complicated, because sending bearing isn't a once-and-never-again thing, while range pretty much is, since it is the most unimportant data for a valid firing solution (this is also why the trouble people have with metric or imperial range readout is imagined in reality).

You have to update the bearing repeatedly when fine tuning your firing solution. Listen carefully now all who read this, because I was explaining that multiple times in the past and only very few people understood it, yet it is not so hard to understand really:

To tune your firing solution you compare computed relativ target bearing (the inner ring's 12oc position on the lower dial, you also get a digital readout by moving the cursor over it, which annoyingly disappears after a few seconds though) with the actually sighted relative target bearing. That's how they did it iRL, and this is what the computed relative target bearing readout was there for in the first place. If computed relative bearing laggs behind, you increase target speed. When it "outruns" it, you decrease target speed. It doesn't matter if speed is really wrong or if it's AOB - once computed relative bearing matches sighted relative bearing, the gyro angle setting WILL be correct and the torps WILL hit the target, and adjusting speed is the easiest way to correct it.

But once you've corrected your speed input, remember you did so because relative bearing went haywire, yes? So you need to update the bearing, and QUICKLY, otherwise your new data you entered (speed) will only update target position based on the outdated and wrong relative bearing. To do that in SHIV though, you need to go through the range gathering process again, which is unnecessarily complicated compared to just pointing the scope on the target and hit a "send bearing" button.

Also, even if you do none of the above, and your solution is poor, the error will still be smaller when you update the bearing just the second before you fire (which you should do in any case, anyway), and the torp will probably hit the target if the error is small and the range isn't too great.

Going through the range gathering process only to update target bearing is very very wrong.

But they won't fix it because there isn't enough whining for it, compared to, say, non-extending bow planes, or that you have to adjust realism options one single time more when you start a new career.