SJ radar depth

Sniper297 · 04-10-17, 02:50 PM

Got into another one of those rough seas where the surface search radar keeps cutting out, got irritated enough to try to find a solution again.

This is pathetic, on SARGO the SJ antenna is 50 feet above the keel, but the option to turn it on won't activate at less than 39 feet, and there's no option to extend it. And having it cut out in heavy sees is ludicrous, unless you're in a typhoon you're not going to get a wave to break over the bridge 40 feet high. Add to that the AI (Artificial Idiot) not programmed to automatically turn it back on again, the whole thing is nothing more than useless aggravation.

Hunted through the downloads to see if anyone had come up with a mod, found only an old one for the SD (air search) radar;

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...do=file&id=169

Reverse engineering that one, the main trick was to activate and change the command.cfg key for 158 toggle snorkel, then change the Sensors_sub_US.sim file for obj_extensible 15 and 17 from type = radarantenna to type = snorkel. I tried changing those back to radar and changing the third one, number 23, to snorkel and that doesn't work, the SJ mast doesn't seem to be extensible at all.

Need some genius to figure out either (1) what controls the depth the SJ cuts out so it can be adjusted higher, (2) a way to extend the SJ antenna mast, or (3) some setting that will make the lubber sleeping at the radar console turn the blasted thing back on after each wave has passed.

ETR3(SS) · 04-10-17, 03:21 PM

I can answer #1. What you're looking for is in the SensorData node for that particular radar located in the Sensors_sub_US.sim. The value you'll want to change is MinSensorHeight=X. There's no reference as to the unit of measurement so you'll have to play around with different numbers.

Sniper297 · 04-10-17, 04:38 PM

Thanks.

Ran through all the nodes, found hydrophone set for -500, so I edited all the nodes that said "radar" to -5. According to the notes that's "Minimum sensor working height (in meters)", although I've occasionally found his notes to be wrong. Tried that, the little hand icon in the HUD to turn the radar on and off still goes out at the same 39 foot depth, but the 3D radar view in the conning tower the on/off toggle switch and all the controls work until the reflector actually goes under, and the sweep and target blips work. Have to set up something where I can try it in a flat calm, see what it does when I change it to something weird like -50. 5 meters is about 16.5 feet, 39 + 16 is 55, which would submerge the reflector. Obviously there are other files involved somewhere, not unusual for SH4 since they programmed it by loading data into a shotgun and blasting away while wearing a blindfold.

Sniper297 · 04-10-17, 09:29 PM

Aaaand, nope. -50 on all, no change. Icon goes out at 39 feet, 3D toggle switch works down to about 48-49 feet, radar shuts off when a wave breaks over the antenna.

So back to square one, the scientific method - restore the original file, run a control test to get a benchmark to see what the original unmodified program does - which is exactly the same thing, hand icon goes dark at 39 feet, on/off switch works until the antenna is submerged.

So good theory on the MinSensorHeight, but it fails MythBusters testing.

ETR3(SS) · 04-11-17, 08:08 AM

ETR3(SS) · 04-11-17, 09:43 AM

Just ran a test with the Sargo, late war CT, SD and SJ radar installed. As you said, option for turning on the radar cut out at 39 ft. But at this time I was still rotating and radiating on the SJ. Progressively took her down to 46 feet when I started taking hits on the antenna from wave action. Radar would shut down, and once the wave cleared would start up again. This is on a stock game with my test missions loaded.

CapnScurvy · 04-11-17, 01:54 PM

The radar, both SJ and SD, are both controlled )n/Off by the Radar Antenna themselves, and their relationship to the water.. There are various types...all have the same function. If the antenna is above water.......it works; if it's below water......it doesn't. There is no set meter/yard/feet figure that effects the function. It's purely where the antenna is positioned in relationship with the water line that causes it to either turn On/Off.

Sniper297 · 04-11-17, 03:49 PM

Yeah, the actual problem may be the flotation physics. If you go to external view in rough weather the hull sometimes appears to be above the surface, even when the depth gauge is showing 19 feet or whatever. I'm watching the wave rise to the bridge coaming, depth gauge shows 22 feet, wave height is (visually) 10 feet below the radar dish and the hand icon goes dark.

I thought one possible solution might be to activate the radar periscope at the start of the war, but trying a BALAO career start 1944 there's no option for it. UpgradePacks.upc shows;

[UpgradePack 6]
ID= UpackSTRadar
NameDisplayable= ST Radar
FunctionalType= UpFTypeSensorPeriscope
UpgradePackSlotType= AdvPeriscope
Type=NULL
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptionCurrent= NULL, NULL, 0
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions1=1941-07-01, 1944-12-31, 3000
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions2=1945-01-01, NULL, 1500
IDLinkUpgradePackElements= ObsPeriscopeST

But with the 1944 BALAO career start there's no option for a radar observation scope.

CapnScurvy · 04-11-17, 07:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper297

Yeah, the actual problem may be the flotation physics. If you go to external view in rough weather the hull sometimes appears to be above the surface, even when the depth gauge is showing 19 feet or whatever. I'm watching the wave rise to the bridge coaming, depth gauge shows 22 feet, wave height is (visually) 10 feet below the radar dish and the hand icon goes dark.

I thought one possible solution might be to activate the radar periscope at the start of the war, but trying a BALAO career start 1944 there's no option for it. UpgradePacks.upc shows;

[UpgradePack 6]
ID= UpackSTRadar
NameDisplayable= ST Radar
FunctionalType= UpFTypeSensorPeriscope
UpgradePackSlotType= AdvPeriscope
Type=NULL
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptionCurrent= NULL, NULL, 0
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions1=1941-07-01, 1944-12-31, 3000
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions2=1945-01-01, NULL, 1500
IDLinkUpgradePackElements= ObsPeriscopeST

But with the 1944 BALAO career start there's no option for a radar observation scope.

Well, the stock ST Radar doesn't work as intended anyway. It's not implemented, due to the fact there's specific files missing to have it work. The Dev's didn't separate the two sensor's using the same object......A Visual Sensor using the Observation Periscope Head, and the Radar Sensor using the same Head. It works for the Visual, not for the Radar part. You put the ST into the air and go to the PPI screen.......you got nothing, it's not capable of turning "On".

As far as the different SJ Antenna's, one of the issues with them is the bottom of the antenna is where it decides whether it's above water or not. If the water line just swells up to the bottom of the radar antenna...its thinking its below water and Off it goes.

I'll admit, the idea of not getting the radar to work during a heavy sea/storm is authentic. It's been known that just the slight rocking of the boat lost radar contacts. Think of the radar as a beam of light streaming from the emitter. On a rocking platform, that beam drives into the sea just yards away from the sub, then shoots up into thin air with the following roll. It's wasn't very consistent with target acquisition when the boat rocked and rolled in moderate sea conditions.

Sniper297 · 04-12-17, 01:18 PM

Huh. Everything I read about WWII surface search radar said the rotating dish was gyro stabilized from the very beginning, so although you would get a lot of false returns from really high waves it wasn't affected by pitch and roll.

The ones I worked on were airborne sets (Lockheed P-3 Orion) in the 70s, a bit more sophisticated (gain and intensity controls on the PPI to filter out grass and false returns) but obviously different since flying below the waves would ruin your whole day.

Anyway the S class looks like 29 feet is the cutoff depth, 39 feet is standard for everything else from Porpoise to Balao regardless of actual antenna height. Looking now at the library sensors.sim and sensors.dat files - sensors.sim is too weird for words, seems to be all about decoy launchers and snorkels. Sensors.dat might be a leftover SH3 file since it's all German stuff (I'm running 1.4 so have none of the 1.5 U-baot stuff) and has radar like "FuMO29GEMA" with the same height and sensor height data as the ones from sub parts. I'll try setting MinSensorHeight in all those nodes to -10 and see if that file is actually used, they're dated 2005.

CapnScurvy · 04-12-17, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper297

Huh. Everything I read about WWII surface search radar said the rotating dish was gyro stabilized from the very beginning, so although you would get a lot of false returns from really high waves it wasn't affected by pitch and roll.

I read the opposite. I think it was in one of the Navy Radar Manuals that even had a diagram of the beam and how it would rise and fall with a moderate to heavy sea state...giving you very limited, if at all, capabilities.

Quote:

Anyway the S class looks like 29 feet is the cutoff depth, 39 feet is standard for everything else from Porpoise to Balao regardless of actual antenna height. Looking now at the library sensors.sim and sensors.dat files - sensors.sim is too weird for words, seems to be all about decoy launchers and snorkels. Sensors.dat might be a leftover SH3 file since it's all German stuff (I'm running 1.4 so have none of the 1.5 U-baot stuff) and has radar like "FuMO29GEMA" with the same height and sensor height data as the ones from sub parts. I'll try setting MinSensorHeight in all those nodes to -10 and see if that file is actually used, they're dated 2005.

I've not looked at my SH4 v1.4 game in a while, but that doesn't sound like anything for an American sub. You're looking in the Data/Library/USSubParts folder for the Sensors.dat and Sensors.sim files?

Sniper297 · 04-12-17, 06:07 PM

Can't find a reference at the moment, other than one that says the first SG sets tested in May 1941 were gyro stabilized.

"With a gyro-stabilized mount, the SG could detect large ships at 15 miles and a submarine periscope at 5 miles. About 1,000 of these sets were built. ASG was designated AN/APS-2 and commonly called "George"; some 5,000 of these were built and found to be very effective in submarine detection. A compact version of the SG for PT Boats was designated the SO. These were introduced in 1942. Other variants were the SF, a set for lighter warships, the SH for large merchant vessels, and the SE and SL, for other smaller ships. The Navy also adopted versions of the Army's SCR-584 (without the M-9 unit but with gyro-stabilizers) for shipboard search radars, the SM for Fleet Carriers and the SP for Escort Carriers. None of these were produced in large quantities, but were highly useful in operations.
The BTL developed the SJ, an S-Band supplement for the SD meter-wave radar on submarines. The antenna for the SJ could sweep the horizon to about 6 miles with good accuracy. Late in the war, the improved SV increased detection ranges to 30 miles."

According to that the 80 Kyard range on the SJ sets in the game is way too much, should be a max of 12,000 yards. Dunno where that could be fixed, but it's not really a priority for me.

Found this though;

http://www.fleetsubmarine.com/radar.html

According to that the SJ antenna was (in Ubisoft's language) "extensible", could be extended above the surface to sweep before surfacing. The mod I tried enables the SD antenna to be extended at periscope depth, but not the SJ.

As for the files,
Data/Library/USSubParts\Sensors_sub_US.sim
is the one we were playing with,
\Data\Library\Sensors.dat
is the one with all the German named radars I'm looking at now.

I'll get to it later, at the moment I'm trying to fix the controller on an ancient PS-2 for one of my grandkids.

Sniper297 · 04-12-17, 08:46 PM

Nope. Went through sensors.dat and wherever it said MinSensorHeight = 1.0 I changed it to -10, no change. Probably one of the unused files left over from SH-3. I would definitely love to have a chat with the scheisskopf who made the decision to release the game without taking out the trash.

ETR3(SS) · 04-13-17, 11:35 AM

The leftover file structure had me contemplating several possibilities for my nuc boats, but there doesn't seem to be a way to reference them anyways. They're quite literally just wasted space. But back to the subject at hand here. My research leads me to conclude that the node position is the determining factor. I used my own Tench class mod with SJ1 radar as the basis. By adjusting the location of the 3d model of the antenna, I was able to use the radar at a depth of ~51 ft.

Sniper297 · 04-13-17, 12:01 PM

Define "use the radar" here. Hand icon or toggle switch at 51 feet?

IIRC the Balao tests I ran with unmodified files the hand icon in the HUD went dark at 39 feet, the radar still worked down to around 50 feet. Even if it looks weird you need to move the 3D model up about 25 feet to confirm you're actually doing something.

04-10-17, 03:21 PM	#2
ETR3(SS) Ocean Warrior Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Between test depth and periscope depth Posts: 3,021 Downloads: 175 Uploads: 16	I can answer #1. What you're looking for is in the SensorData node for that particular radar located in the Sensors_sub_US.sim. The value you'll want to change is MinSensorHeight=X. There's no reference as to the unit of measurement so you'll have to play around with different numbers. __________________ USS Kentucky SSBN 737 (G) Comms Div 2003-2006 Qualified 19 November 03 Yes I was really on a submarine.

04-11-17, 08:08 AM	#5
ETR3(SS) Ocean Warrior Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Between test depth and periscope depth Posts: 3,021 Downloads: 175 Uploads: 16	__________________ USS Kentucky SSBN 737 (G) Comms Div 2003-2006 Qualified 19 November 03 Yes I was really on a submarine.

04-11-17, 09:43 AM	#6
ETR3(SS) Ocean Warrior Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Between test depth and periscope depth Posts: 3,021 Downloads: 175 Uploads: 16	Just ran a test with the Sargo, late war CT, SD and SJ radar installed. As you said, option for turning on the radar cut out at 39 ft. But at this time I was still rotating and radiating on the SJ. Progressively took her down to 46 feet when I started taking hits on the antenna from wave action. Radar would shut down, and once the wave cleared would start up again. This is on a stock game with my test missions loaded. __________________ USS Kentucky SSBN 737 (G) Comms Div 2003-2006 Qualified 19 November 03 Yes I was really on a submarine.

04-10-17, 02:50 PM	#1
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	SJ radar depth Got into another one of those rough seas where the surface search radar keeps cutting out, got irritated enough to try to find a solution again. This is pathetic, on SARGO the SJ antenna is 50 feet above the keel, but the option to turn it on won't activate at less than 39 feet, and there's no option to extend it. And having it cut out in heavy sees is ludicrous, unless you're in a typhoon you're not going to get a wave to break over the bridge 40 feet high. Add to that the AI (Artificial Idiot) not programmed to automatically turn it back on again, the whole thing is nothing more than useless aggravation. Hunted through the downloads to see if anyone had come up with a mod, found only an old one for the SD (air search) radar; http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...do=file&id=169 Reverse engineering that one, the main trick was to activate and change the command.cfg key for 158 toggle snorkel, then change the Sensors_sub_US.sim file for obj_extensible 15 and 17 from type = radarantenna to type = snorkel. I tried changing those back to radar and changing the third one, number 23, to snorkel and that doesn't work, the SJ mast doesn't seem to be extensible at all. Need some genius to figure out either (1) what controls the depth the SJ cuts out so it can be adjusted higher, (2) a way to extend the SJ antenna mast, or (3) some setting that will make the lubber sleeping at the radar console turn the blasted thing back on after each wave has passed.

04-10-17, 04:38 PM	#3
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	Thanks. Ran through all the nodes, found hydrophone set for -500, so I edited all the nodes that said "radar" to -5. According to the notes that's "Minimum sensor working height (in meters)", although I've occasionally found his notes to be wrong. Tried that, the little hand icon in the HUD to turn the radar on and off still goes out at the same 39 foot depth, but the 3D radar view in the conning tower the on/off toggle switch and all the controls work until the reflector actually goes under, and the sweep and target blips work. Have to set up something where I can try it in a flat calm, see what it does when I change it to something weird like -50. 5 meters is about 16.5 feet, 39 + 16 is 55, which would submerge the reflector. Obviously there are other files involved somewhere, not unusual for SH4 since they programmed it by loading data into a shotgun and blasting away while wearing a blindfold.

04-10-17, 09:29 PM	#4
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	Aaaand, nope. -50 on all, no change. Icon goes out at 39 feet, 3D toggle switch works down to about 48-49 feet, radar shuts off when a wave breaks over the antenna. So back to square one, the scientific method - restore the original file, run a control test to get a benchmark to see what the original unmodified program does - which is exactly the same thing, hand icon goes dark at 39 feet, on/off switch works until the antenna is submerged. So good theory on the MinSensorHeight, but it fails MythBusters testing.

04-11-17, 03:49 PM	#8
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	Yeah, the actual problem may be the flotation physics. If you go to external view in rough weather the hull sometimes appears to be above the surface, even when the depth gauge is showing 19 feet or whatever. I'm watching the wave rise to the bridge coaming, depth gauge shows 22 feet, wave height is (visually) 10 feet below the radar dish and the hand icon goes dark. I thought one possible solution might be to activate the radar periscope at the start of the war, but trying a BALAO career start 1944 there's no option for it. UpgradePacks.upc shows; [UpgradePack 6] ID= UpackSTRadar NameDisplayable= ST Radar FunctionalType= UpFTypeSensorPeriscope UpgradePackSlotType= AdvPeriscope Type=NULL UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptionCurrent= NULL, NULL, 0 UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions1=1941-07-01, 1944-12-31, 3000 UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions2=1945-01-01, NULL, 1500 IDLinkUpgradePackElements= ObsPeriscopeST But with the 1944 BALAO career start there's no option for a radar observation scope.

04-12-17, 01:18 PM	#10
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	Huh. Everything I read about WWII surface search radar said the rotating dish was gyro stabilized from the very beginning, so although you would get a lot of false returns from really high waves it wasn't affected by pitch and roll. The ones I worked on were airborne sets (Lockheed P-3 Orion) in the 70s, a bit more sophisticated (gain and intensity controls on the PPI to filter out grass and false returns) but obviously different since flying below the waves would ruin your whole day. Anyway the S class looks like 29 feet is the cutoff depth, 39 feet is standard for everything else from Porpoise to Balao regardless of actual antenna height. Looking now at the library sensors.sim and sensors.dat files - sensors.sim is too weird for words, seems to be all about decoy launchers and snorkels. Sensors.dat might be a leftover SH3 file since it's all German stuff (I'm running 1.4 so have none of the 1.5 U-baot stuff) and has radar like "FuMO29GEMA" with the same height and sensor height data as the ones from sub parts. I'll try setting MinSensorHeight in all those nodes to -10 and see if that file is actually used, they're dated 2005.

04-12-17, 06:07 PM	#12
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	Can't find a reference at the moment, other than one that says the first SG sets tested in May 1941 were gyro stabilized. "With a gyro-stabilized mount, the SG could detect large ships at 15 miles and a submarine periscope at 5 miles. About 1,000 of these sets were built. ASG was designated AN/APS-2 and commonly called "George"; some 5,000 of these were built and found to be very effective in submarine detection. A compact version of the SG for PT Boats was designated the SO. These were introduced in 1942. Other variants were the SF, a set for lighter warships, the SH for large merchant vessels, and the SE and SL, for other smaller ships. The Navy also adopted versions of the Army's SCR-584 (without the M-9 unit but with gyro-stabilizers) for shipboard search radars, the SM for Fleet Carriers and the SP for Escort Carriers. None of these were produced in large quantities, but were highly useful in operations. The BTL developed the SJ, an S-Band supplement for the SD meter-wave radar on submarines. The antenna for the SJ could sweep the horizon to about 6 miles with good accuracy. Late in the war, the improved SV increased detection ranges to 30 miles." According to that the 80 Kyard range on the SJ sets in the game is way too much, should be a max of 12,000 yards. Dunno where that could be fixed, but it's not really a priority for me. Found this though; http://www.fleetsubmarine.com/radar.html According to that the SJ antenna was (in Ubisoft's language) "extensible", could be extended above the surface to sweep before surfacing. The mod I tried enables the SD antenna to be extended at periscope depth, but not the SJ. As for the files, Data/Library/USSubParts\Sensors_sub_US.sim is the one we were playing with, \Data\Library\Sensors.dat is the one with all the German named radars I'm looking at now. I'll get to it later, at the moment I'm trying to fix the controller on an ancient PS-2 for one of my grandkids.

04-12-17, 08:46 PM	#13
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	Nope. Went through sensors.dat and wherever it said MinSensorHeight = 1.0 I changed it to -10, no change. Probably one of the unused files left over from SH-3. I would definitely love to have a chat with the scheisskopf who made the decision to release the game without taking out the trash.

04-13-17, 12:01 PM	#15
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	Define "use the radar" here. Hand icon or toggle switch at 51 feet? IIRC the Balao tests I ran with unmodified files the hand icon in the HUD went dark at 39 feet, the radar still worked down to around 50 feet. Even if it looks weird you need to move the 3D model up about 25 feet to confirm you're actually doing something.