Some roaming escorts?

[Fidd]

Reading accounts of the Battle of the Atlantic, one frequently reads about destroyers, and to a lesser degree corvettes "rushing about chivvying stragglers and roaming around the periphery of the convoy at great speed".. (I paraphrase)

In other words, the behaviour of the AI escorts currently practically gaurentees a U-boat at sufficient range can be reasonably certain that until torpedo hits, no escort will get within asdic range. Perhaps we need more widely ranging escorts (as part of the difficulty rating?) so that a close eye needs to be kept on the positions and likely tracks of escorts, rather than simply standing off as they obliviously steam ahead in predictable positions around the convoy....

[blackswan40]

A Mission Editor would give Wolfpack that

Rum Convoy HX72 for LSH2015 or having other Escorts arriving 40-60mins into a mission
doing the creeping attacks just like in SH3/GWX-LSH2015

[THE_MASK]

agree +1

[Furia]

Human manned escorts will surely bring the „unpredictability factor“ you are looking for.

[blackswan40]

be like the good old days with SH2 Destroyer Command

[Onkel Neal]

I agree, we will improve the escort AI. We discussed some behaviors that we could tweak, such as a sub routine for an escort that, when getting no results from sonar sweeps, will race at top speed to an adjacent area and perform a sweep. that would have an arresting impact on the player, to be keeping an eye on a destroyer and then see that destroyer moving across the sea at 35 knots, the player has no idea what his intention is. "Have I been detected? Why is he doing this where is he going?"

Also, escorts should move to within 2000 m of a torpedoed ship as part of their search routine.

Last, we will focus more attention on periscope detection, Oscar mentioned a timer type of system with range, lighting and u-boat speed factors. I hope that at some point it would be very dangerous to leave your Periscope up for 30 seconds with the destroyer 2000 away in daylight.

[Fidd]

I'd say the periscope detection would be a really tricky thing, mathematically, to code well. There's just so many factors that come into it:

Up-sun, or down-sun
Relative height of sun over the horizon
Light levels
Sea-state
U-boat movement
Duration of exposure
Distance
Frequency and duration of destroyer lookouts employment of binoculars
Zoom and field of view of same
Rolling and pitching if viewer
Weather
Expectation of seeing a U-boat periscope (after an attack high, else pretty low)

And that's just the stuff I can immediately think of!

[Onkel Neal]

that's an excellent summary of factors, especially the last one cuz you know once the ship has been torpedoed your risk of detection jumps

[Stormfly]

most of the bigger convoys had an additional outside escort ring, called "Aussensicherung"... and later in the middle a smaler "escort carrier" sometimes.

[Fidd]

Indeed. I'd also like to see, in an appropriate time-frame, the occasional emergence of the "hunter-killer" groups, so that one might occasionally have to contend with 6 or so pukka destroyers operating with much more aggressive and persistant AI searches/attacks occurring for hours, rather than minutes.

By the by, can we please have an automatically updated chalk-board "tally" graphic in the control-room which keeps track of depth-charges dropped on or near "our" boat?

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by Fidd

...
By the by, can we please have an automatically updated chalk-board "tally" graphic in the control-room which keeps track of depth-charges dropped on or near "our" boat?

Why automatic? The boat is supposed to be run by real people.

[Fidd]

True, however, do you want to be the person whose sole job is to record the "bangs"?

[Pisces]

Well, that is another extreme. Why not have any crew member be able to click on the chalkboard to add a stripe? There is only 5 people on board.

[Fidd]

You need to ask yourself, just how many of your fellow players you trust with a stick of chalk…

[THE_MASK]

Hi guys .
Whats my role in this awesome multiplayer game where we can interact with each other and together we can control a ww2 uboat and sink enemy ships ?
Your on chalk .