Air Cover

[WildYak]

Hello all,

I was enjoying my last few hours with GWX 1.03 this morning (more fun when there is nothing to lose since I'm reinstalling later on) and I noticed that there was some rather predictable air cover activity.
I detect radar signals from aircraft, and immediately dive down to periscope depth. I stick up the scope (this is not usual activity, but I did it to confirm my suspicion) and watch the planes patrol. EVERY time, they show up, do a 180 within a thousand meters of where I am, and then head away. My detection meter never blinks off of green, so I highly doubt that they have detected me. So this means that they are programed to spawn and arrive where you are, and if they don't detect you, head away on the opposite heading? Is there any way to mod in air patrols that actually follow historic ones or typical air cover? I know there was a lot of air cover, but it kind of sucks that they always will come to your exact location, circle once, and then leave. Maybe this is addressed in GWX 2.0...maybe fixing this would overwhelm the processor. I don't know jack about modding. As it stands though, it seems to be nonsense that planes that have not the slightest suspicion of where you are will do a 180 right above you and head home everytime they patrol.

Just wanted to hear any thoughts about this.

[Steel_Tomb]

yeah air cover is all scripted its a tad frustrating really...as they home in on your exact location every time even in bad weather. Dont know about GWX 2.0...would be cool if they made it completely random.

[Brag]

In the Gulf of Cadiz, with decks awash, and rough seas, I have watched airplanes fly on a westerly course, not see me then some time later fly back toward Gib. They were realistically covering the transit og single merchants.

They would spot me approximately one in three times, change course and fly toward me.

In calm seas and fully surfaced, they spot you everytrime.

I've seen same behavior north of Scotland.

[WildYak]

Righto....I agree with you there, but what my issue seems to be is that the point where their routine patrols always turn around is directly on top of my submerged sub that they absolutely couldn't have detected or suspected.

[JU_88]

The aircraft AI in SH3 has always been primative to say the least and Im afraid there is not much anyone can do to improve their actual routine, if we could do that we could code proper AI for submarines too.

If you pick an aircraft up with radar warning, it wont be long until its picks up your boat on its own radar and heads straight for your location.
You dive and it heads to where it though your boat was located, finds nothing then buggers off.

In real life it wasnt really like this, firstly the radar warning on uboats wasnt nearly as reliable as it is in SH3 - it didnt work 100% of the time but AFAIK here is no way to randomise it in SH3.
we can only change its sensitvity not accuracy as the game does not accomadate this.

Anyway Coastal command adotpted various tactics against Uboats.
Aircrews were instructed to do the following when radar contact was lost because of the Uboat diving (during daylight).

If they handn't got close enough in time to see a swell or wake on the oceans surface - but had got a rough fix on the suspected Uboats position and heading, they would immediatley send a radio report.
Next they would kill the radar, turn around and fly for couple of miles in the opposite direction - away from the contact to allow some time to pass.
Then they would turn around once more and head for an estimated postion of the uboat based on its submerged speed and approx course, they then began a search patten by sight with the radar still switched off.
The purpose of this was to pounce on the uboat when it surfaced, if it proved fruitless after a certain amount of time, only then, they would then resume the search by radar.
For obvious reasons aircrews had to rely more heavily on the radar at night and in less favourable weather conditions.

So with that in mind, having the aircraft do a 180 over your boat isnt quite so bad.

[WildYak]

Thanks a lot for the information. I always enjoy picking up tidbits like that.

[NiclDoe]

Originally Posted by Brag

In the Gulf of Cadiz, with decks awash, and rough seas, I have watched airplanes fly on a westerly course, not see me then some time later fly back toward Gib. They were realistically covering the transit og single merchants.

They would spot me approximately one in three times, change course and fly toward me.

In calm seas and fully surfaced, they spot you everytrime.

I've seen same behavior north of Scotland.

Dumb planes are going to kill you 1 day BALZ!!!!

[Letum]

Sounds like radar to me, what year is this?

[WildYak]

At the moment, it's 1943. Perhaps this is the issue. I am playing with the detection meter. I was under the impression that it is possible to detect radar from the enemy before they get a fix on you with it. Either way, wouldn't the detection meter turn that lovely shade of death (red) when you actually started bouncing radar waves back to them?

[Steel_Tomb]

Yeah they will have picked you up on their radar...I found out to my horror that they can detect you when schnorkling at pd...i was just minding my own buisness what BANG BANG BANG "we are taking damage herr kaleun!"...bloody mossies