Shadowing behind seabed contours: How to do it effectively?

[amrcg]

How is one supposed to find advantageous seabed contours effectively without the fathometer screen and without having to obsessively follow the instantaneous depth-below-keel indication?
Please bring the Jane's 688i fathometer screen back!

Antonio

[Nydrre]

Is what you're talking about similar to the Trim and Ice Indicator screen on the Seawolf? (top right corner of the Ship Control Station) I would like to see something like what you are talking about or the screen I mentioned somewhere on all subs.

[XabbaRus]

There is some region in SE Asia where there are lots of sea hills etc in seawater that is the right depth for a sub to exploit. I think fish or Baron found the area.

I have always wanted to play and MP mission using that area as it is quite small and could be good fun.

[Bellman]

Back in the 'ice-age' I remember playing a forerunner of 688 (The name escapes me) on my old Amiga 1200.

The terrain was modeled very well and it was tremendous fun weaving through underwater valleys, hiding, and stalking.

[MaHuJa]

There is another way to do this. First, you have to find an "optimal depth" for it, then mark just about every place (or at least so that you can see the shape) where it rises above this. I've often used this for 400' when flying, to know where I can put deep buoys and where I must use the shallow ones.

This takes a bit of manual work, and is somewhat limited, but will give you an extra visible hint on how things look. Marking the tops and putting a depth text on the marker is helpful as well.

[Amizaur]

One of things I miss most in DW are more detailed bathymetry (or bathygraphy ? not sure which word is right) lines/data on NAV map. An option I could enable (show/hide bathygraphy) and see lines indicating equal depth, plotted every 10 or even 5 meters of depth on shallow water. In some long real-time missions when I have enaugh time I try to make my own ones with markers, it looks like that:



In this mission I plotted them exactly with bottom-shadowing in mind, I wanted to hide behind this visible bottom "tongue' anomaly between me and my coming M02 target (pinging me with active).

Would be great if I could get such lines on map without doing them myself.
And not too hard to program I think ? Not as difficult as adding another station to game. Just another graphic option, lines showing depth more precisely than those color changes on map (which are not precise enaugh to be useful on shallow water).

Anyone else would like such feature ? :-)

[Bellman]

Except in those missions where RADM Fish has successfuly made a very careful selection of location
for topographical interest this seems to be 'minority sport' (now ?)

The Kilo diver particularly needs the facility to use terrain and for the general diver playing sub v sub
it adds an extra challenge and lots of fun.

It would be an immense task to craft general area maps with enhanced topo. showing-up as 'contours'.
But if some specific map areas could be modded it would enhance playability and give another dimension to 'stealth'.

[OKO]

Originally Posted by Amizaur

One of things I miss most in DW are more detailed bathymetry (or bathygraphy ? not sure which word is right) lines/data on NAV map. An option I could enable (show/hide bathygraphy) and see lines indicating equal depth ...

Sorry Amizaur, but the color of the bathymetric filter does NOT represent the depth, as your screen show it easily.

The colors represent the quality of sound propagation at this place.
In the same map, you could have a very bright zone, much deeper than a darker one. Just watch it
You have to use these zone differently if you want to hide (in brighter zone) or listen (in darker zone, where you have a much better detection possibilities)

Of course, depth have influence on sound propagation, but not only this : also the general geographic site (corridors, mount, cliff etc ...) will change the sound propagation.

So, what you see as blue color DOES NOT REPRESENT the depth but the SOUND PROPAGATION QUALITY (... SNR).

... as it was already in Sub Command ...

[Kapitan]

why dont you go to google and search ocean maps with countours i do that i play under ice nearly all the time and i have verious real world maps that help me

if you print it out and stick it in a plastic sleve then you can write on it with a dry wipe marker like i do that way you can plot a course then copy it to the nav screen :|\

[Bellman]

We can imagine the contours are there
But the physical entities is not mapped in detail in the game and therefore cannot influence tactics - particularly sub v sub MP.

The call is therefore to physicaly map them into some MP scenarios. Contours now shown and physicaly there.

A level of detail which would only be possible by 'outwork' for certain scenarios.
I dont think the tool/s are available to scenario designers, currently ?

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by Amizaur

One of things I miss most in DW are more detailed bathymetry (or bathygraphy ? not sure which word is right) lines/data on NAV map. An option I could enable (show/hide bathygraphy) and see lines indicating equal depth,

I miss that too, when trying to hide or when engaging contacts... I think the real seamaps have those ?

[Nydrre]

Originally Posted by OKO

Sorry Amizaur, but the color of the bathymetric filter does NOT represent the depth, as your screen show it easily.

The colors represent the quality of sound propagation at this place.
In the same map, you could have a very bright zone, much deeper than a darker one. Just watch it
You have to use these zone differently if you want to hide (in brighter zone) or listen (in darker zone, where you have a much better detection possibilities)

Of course, depth have influence on sound propagation, but not only this : also the general geographic site (corridors, mount, cliff etc ...) will change the sound propagation.

So, what you see as blue color DOES NOT REPRESENT the depth but the SOUND PROPAGATION QUALITY (... SNR).

... as it was already in Sub Command ...

Lighter zone less propogation, darker zone better propogation: gotcha
I was wondering about that... knew it wasn't depth but couldnt figure out what it was.

[amrcg]

Well, for now I think that the old Jane's 688i fathometer screen (with the depth-below-keel history) would be enough to effectively find underwater hills and valleys, which could then be marked on the map. As this feature was already present in an earlier simulator, I believe it would not be very difficult to add it to DW. I simply don't understand why they have deleted that feature when they made the upgrade to SubCommand.

Regards,
Antonio

[Amizaur]

The depth data is on the NAV map too (the SHIFT+I key pressed once disables it) only the "propagation" colours are stronger... Unfortunately the depth data is very low contrast and too unprecise (colours change only every few hundred feets) for shallow water...

[Bellman]

Snap amrcq - thats the game.

You could bring up various graphical representations of the 'terrain' surrounding your sub - The original 'Hide and seeker'

You got some of the same buzz with helicopter sims. Before they got too clever with gut wrenching graphics, when the Dinosaurs
ruled, you had sims. like Microsofts Gunship. Dodging behind hills, lurking in hollows , popping-up to Hellfire the c**p out of targets. Mucho fun.

:rotfl: Ok so the hills looked like Egyptian pyramids