Odd thing I found browsing through some of the destroyers SMS files, all of them list LinkName=AI_Visual for the visual range - so change that and the visual range ring changes for all. I had noticed the screwup between hydrophone versus "sonar" (actually the pinger is called the transducer, sonar = both hydrophone and transducer), you'd think with a 50-50 chance of getting it right...they did the same thing with radar A scope versus PPI scope, exactly backwards.
Their math is rather weird too, I'm guessing the rings are average range, for example the type 21 radar max is 14000 yards, the outer ring around the Akizuki (has type 21 in 44) is exactly 8000 yards. Change the range to 7000 in the AI_sensors.dat file and the ring is 4000 yards, so it changes proportionately, halve the range and halve the circle.
What I'm playing with right now is doubled active sonar so the semi circle is twice as big, with the passive halved. That cuts way down on the apparent psychic effect where you're creeping along at 2 knots five miles away and one of them suddenly makes a beeline straight for you, but it may be a little too much because they get really stupid and charge off in weird directions sometimes. Doubling the active seems to work well because you hear pinging all the time when you're inside the task force or convoy, really keeps you on your toes.
As for cans of worms, right now I just have all the passive sonars adjusted for the same max range, for testing purposes it really doesn't matter what which ship had in October of 1943 if I'm testing in 1942. Eventually I'll start with the backup copy of the original and use the calculator to increase or reduce everything by whatever percentage balances the difficulty best. That's pretty much what I did with the "Bang for your Buck" mod, take the default min/max blast and radius values for each torpedo type, multiply by 125, 135, 150 percent or whatever. If I do eventually upload this it will probably be similar with a choice of difficulty levels.
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