Radio Intercepts

[Domestos]

How do radio contact reports work in SH5 (with the The Wolves of Steel 1.06 mod)?

I see them in my captains log, but is there a way to be alerted when one comes in?

Also can I ask the BdU to not send me contacts that are off flipping Gibraltar but at least within a days sailing?

Ta
Domestos

[vdr1981]

Originally Posted by Domestos

How do radio contact reports work in SH5 (with the The Wolves of Steel 1.06 mod)?

I see them in my captains log, but is there a way to be alerted when one comes in?

Also can I ask the BdU to not send me contacts that are off flipping Gibraltar but at least within a days sailing?

Ta
Domestos

I hope this old post of mine can solve your uncertainties....

So, I understand that the range you can change on the upper bar is the max range that SH5 will send you a message about a convoy right?

No...In Captain's log are always shown radio reports from all over the world regardless of contact's range from your current position in SH world. Range bar in upper right corner offers you a possibility to "filter" which radio report will be ported and shown in your message box and Ship's journal too. If I'm not mistaken, this is NewUIs feature and these ported reports will also have slightly different construction with few useful additional informations, like relative contact range, true/relative bearing ect...Range settings can also be used in combination with "TC1 on new contact report" command.

As you can see, this is really useful feature because we can adjust our game to warn us only about useful radio reports in our proximity (400km by default in TWoS), while other distant reports will stay berried in Captain's log.

So, if you set your range to some high values (like diameter of SH world) it is obvious that contact reports shown in Captains log and those ported to message box/Ships journal will be exactly the same. Not very useful because we don't really need info about convoys spotted in Mediterranean while sailing in north Atlantic....

If you set range to 0, then contact report shown in your Captain's log will never be ported to message box and Ship's journal...

How often do they come?

It depends on current sea traffic density and war period... Take a look at this entry from Convoys.mis file from HT campaign....British convoy BCR2

[LanesGraph.Node 1.NodeGroup 1]
Type=BCR2_
Name=BCR2
Country=British
Speed=6.000000
StartDate=19390804
EndDate=19451231
ReportPosTime=3606
ReportPosProbability=50

Yellow values control when and will you actually receive radio contact report shown in your Captain's log. In stock OHII ReportPosProbability was always 60% but for TWoS I have further adjusted these values to vary from 30 -60 % depending on war period and campaign locations in order to simulate number of available U-boats, Luftwaffe crash after '43, Enigma code cracking ect...

I cant confirm this for sure, but there is a possibility that sending status report from our U-boat may somewhat effect ReportPosProbability values...This is hard to test though...

If you increase it to a very large number, would the game show messages more often?

No...Number of radio contacts report received in your Captains log will be exactly the same.

Are they always the same message?

Of course not...Remenber ReportPosProbability values ?

Does it send single ship messages as well?

There are not much "single ships" in campaign layers. There are few scripted units here and there but usually their ReportPosProbability value is set to 0. We have convoys, task forces, and small convoys set in several campaign layers (convoy.mis, traffic.mis, taskforces.mis ect)

I'm thinking of doing that randomization of the contact messages I talked about. Some will say: intelligence, air recon, etc... and others from Uboats reporting radio bearings for triangulation. I'm still doing some research on this. If you have any other ideas about this part, let me know.

I hope that previous lines can shade some light on your uncertainties...

[Domestos]

Brilliant, I understand now! Is there a way to get an audio alert when one comes in? I think SH3 had a burst of morse code.

Domestos

[kevinsue]

There doesn't seem to be a way of getting any warning regarding radio contact reports in the captains log. I normally keep my position (Lat and Long) in my head and then scroll though the contact reports to see if they are in the rough vicinity to me and which direction they are heading. Once you have a radio contact of interest, I use this tool to plot the position of the convoy accurately
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...32&postcount=7 and this chart to plot the exact heading http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...4&postcount=11 and then the speed charts in the user charts to update the progress to calculate an intercept position. Depending on the convoy routes, most times the convoy appears exactly where it's supposed to be and sometimes not if they have changed course to their destination during the intercept. I have found that using the radio contact reports and predicting their positions is far more effective locating convoys than just doing automated search patterns in the patrol area. It's very satisfying doing an intercept that has you running 30 hours at flank speed and the convoy appears exactly where you predicted it to be.

[HW3]

Is there a way to get an audio alert when one comes in?

Not that I know of. In my install I noticed that if I am running time compression, it will drop to x1 when a message comes in to the captains log. That is the only notice I get.