If a sim is hard, it is realistic? NO. I hate the sensor programming.

[Catfish]

Hello,
just have to vent a bit. After i said a thousand times the game is much too hard i made another similar experience again.

I have GWX2.0, with 2.1, and OLCE2, with the 1.2.5 Gui installed.

Yes i know the sensors in SH3 are screwed up, bad programming, one interacts with another etc. etc. So no we can not change the sensors for good, much too complicated, i do not know what i ask for. It seems we can only make them harder and more difficult. Ahaa.

Here goes:
It is still late 1939, black night and i would not see a mole in coal without Gamma set up to 2.5 with aTuner on my screen. Sure they must have had that in WW2. I just got the message that U-47 sank the Ark Royal and the Repulse. Nice. Next moment my lookout spots a convoy at roughly 11.5 kilometers. This could have happened, dark silhouettes against a horizon that is not quite as black as the sea, ok.

I overtake it at a distance of more than 10 km, the two escorts does not seem to see me. Since i know they and all merchants will see my 3 meter conning tower in a pitch black night and a distance of 8 km in SH3 (realistic eh) i go in submerged, silent running, slow.

I am at roughly 600 meters away from a freighter (submerged!), and since i want to get a bit closer i lower the 'scope and set the speed to "3". Instantly all hell breaks lose, not only are starshells going up, as well all the freighters turn on searchlights and someone is firing at me, hitting my conning tower and damaging the Flak. Next destroyer is 2000 m away as far as i can see. Back to slow alright.

Those freighters must have really advanced hydroscopes. Remember it is pitch black night, my periscope is lowered and i am submerged at 12-13 meters.

If this is realistic all books i ever read about the tactics and victories of U-boats are complete crap: U-boats ran into convoys surfaced, at night, between escorts and close to them whithout ever being seen. Now can't we somehow tweak this sim to be a bit more realistic without making it ridiculously hard ?

Grrr. I hate it. I am feeling better now. Thanks.

Greetings,
Catfish

[GoldenRivet]

good luck out there.

you just have to remember that it is a PC sim which is limited to programming capabilities.

In real life you had to work with men and equipment... in SH3 there is only "code" to interface with to make events happen within the sim.

you made the mistake of increasing speed to 3... thats the threshold above which you are detectable. when you do that the enemy INSTANTLY knows exactly where you are. if it was as dark as you say... why didnt you approach on the surface??? then speed plays a lesser role in your detectablity.

sorry... but the use of real life tactics in SH3 is limited to what the game code allows. and there are little things like speed to account for.

yes its frustrating

yes its difficult

no... it cant be changed (much) and therfore complaining about the difficulty of SH3 is like complaining about sand at the beach.

sorry you had the experience... but all i can say is better luck next time.

[AVGWarhawk]

When I was playing GWX I thought the sensors were not bad at all. Just my experience with it. I recall one night attack I was no less then 100 yards off the portside of a corvette. I was not detected. But, I guess sometimes it is frustrating if you are detected all the time. No doubt, GWX makes the game much more challenging. Stock SH3 was off my hard drive after 3 months playing until GWX made it more challenging all be just too hard sometimes.

[onelifecrisis]

Edit: taken to PM.

[Catfish]

Hello GoldenRivet,
yeah, already cooled down. You are certainly right, but it IS just so frustrating .
Imagine running even as fast at 5 knots submerged - there is no way anyone would have heard you in a 600 m radius of a lumbering merchant in mid-convoy - well, in reality, that is.
Escorts were faar away. And there was no sonar for sure.

Only a question, i did exercise some surface attacks at night before, but i would never come as near as to 600 m without being seen. Indeed they would spot me at some 4000 meters in pitch-black night in 1939 - so it seems it is not possible to make a typical early years-surface attack ?
Oh well, i wrote i like the challenge, seems i have to live up to that.

Greetings,
Catfish

[Hartmann]

in my actual patrol i had my first frustating experience.


in 1943 with a ix-c boat, after an attack to a convoy protected by 6-7 scorts and sunk two tankers with 20.000 tons in total (i fired to a scort carrier but i missed and the two torps hit one tanker ) i tried to scape and i was near to this when one scort catch me in his sonar and start the depht charge attack.

doesn´t matter what i do, 250 meters, launch decoys, evasive actions ... the scort always see me like it has x-Ray active sonar, after some time it run out of charges, but another scort arrived and continue the attack. i had to go up to periscope depth and finish one scort with two torpedoes and dive again until the second scort run out of charges . then the same history, go up to periscope depth and destroy the second destroyer with three torpedoes.

by this time some mosquito planes were carpet bombing the surface trying to catch my boat.

seems that sometimes is impossible to scape, and if you don´t have more fishes to launch or you fail the shot ....

[Jimbuna]

I think I understand your frustration and your honesty here in the way you vent said frustration, but it is also pleasing to see you accept the challenge that the mod poses you.

I have also had many a similar experience, often more frustrating than satisfying, dependant on what mood I'm in.

Overall I consider it a challenge and liken it to the unknown variables or fog of war that Kaleuns must have faced in RL situations.

I'd hope you'd join me in recognising the limitations imposed on the team by a game code that is over 3 years old now.

I'll probably get spotted now (6000 metres and closing) by the escorts of the convoy I'm shadowing.

Good Hunting Kaleun

[AVGWarhawk]

This reminds me of my "2nd Patrol Your Dead Club". Yes, yours truly is the founder. My challenge was to get to a 3rd patrol. It never materialized But, it made the game that much more challenging when using GWX. Personally, I like the challenge GWX imposed with the sensors. Somedays I would win some and others not.

[_Seth_]

Just a reminder to keep the discussion on periscope depth, mateys!

[johan_d]

I understand fully what he said.. this bring me to those questions:

1. are the DD sensorsfile the same as the uboat ones? or are they seperate files?
in that case it could be tamed done a bit.

2. is the 2 knot speed hardcoded ot can it be altered?

3. is the detection somewhat random? since sometimes one succeed in closing up
very close, but most cant.

I do look sometimes from the target point of view to my sub, but when the distance is great, like 5 or more km, and with knowing where to look I cant see it. How can the enemy see it then?

He has a point, besides the great fun with GWX, it can be really frustrating, and then we dont even bring in 1943 and beyond!.

[Red Heat]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Hello,
just have to vent a bit. After i said a thousand times the game is much too hard i made another similar experience again.

I have GWX2.0, with 2.1, and OLCE2, with the 1.2.5 Gui installed.

Yes i know the sensors in SH3 are screwed up, bad programming, one interacts with another etc. etc. So no we can not change the sensors for good, much too complicated, i do not know what i ask for. It seems we can only make them harder and more difficult. Ahaa.

Here goes:
It is still late 1939, black night and i would not see a mole in coal without Gamma set up to 2.5 with aTuner on my screen. Sure they must have had that in WW2. I just got the message that U-47 sank the Ark Royal and the Repulse. Nice. Next moment my lookout spots a convoy at roughly 11.5 kilometers. This could have happened, dark silhouettes against a horizon that is not quite as black as the sea, ok.

I overtake it at a distance of more than 10 km, the two escorts does not seem to see me. Since i know they and all merchants will see my 3 meter conning tower in a pitch black night and a distance of 8 km in SH3 (realistic eh) i go in submerged, silent running, slow.

I am at roughly 600 meters away from a freighter (submerged!), and since i want to get a bit closer i lower the 'scope and set the speed to "3". Instantly all hell breaks lose, not only are starshells going up, as well all the freighters turn on searchlights and someone is firing at me, hitting my conning tower and damaging the Flak. Next destroyer is 2000 m away as far as i can see. Back to slow alright.

Those freighters must have really advanced hydroscopes. Remember it is pitch black night, my periscope is lowered and i am submerged at 12-13 meters.

If this is realistic all books i ever read about the tactics and victories of U-boats are complete crap: U-boats ran into convoys surfaced, at night, between escorts and close to them whithout ever being seen. Now can't we somehow tweak this sim to be a bit more realistic without making it ridiculously hard ?

Grrr. I hate it. I am feeling better now. Thanks.

Greetings,
Catfish

I think your are RIGHT!
I feel the same....

[Kpt. Lehmann]

To Catfish and others who whinge and complain regarding the sensors in GWX... I am going to respond with all the kindness and cordiality that I can muster... inspite of the rudeness of the OP.

"Was GWX's AI altered for the sake of challenge?" The answer is no. I mean no offense, but If your comparison's used the scientific method, and had begun with stock SH3... The improvements that GWX arguably introduces, may present you with a clearer picture of where we are versus where SH3 started. Modifications to GWX AI sensors were made with the intent to produce historically plausible situations and outcomes, to the best of our abilities... within an entire series of game and code limitations. Increased challenge to the player though, was a predictable side effect of modding the enemy AI sensors.

The AI should punish dumb mistakes... In stock SH3 escorts/DD's/AI response is boneheaded and thick beyond belief IMHO... allowing total distruction of convoys and taskforces with virtually no risk to the player.

A proper gradient reflecting the progression of technology, resulting in an accelerating curve of U-boat losses is modelled in GWX.

Is it perfect? Of course not. I don't think any mod's ASW arrangement or sensors modification is perfect... nor do I feel that we have anything to be ashamed of. It does the job quite nicely IMHO. On full realism, it certainly cuts down on 500,000 ton single patrols by players... The GWX dev team made a concerted effort to interlock the ASW assets, damage models, contact reports, campaign files, and weapon damage balancing in an effort cut down on rediculous tonnage hauls.

Reputable sources were used and relied upon. (Clay Blair, U-boat Commander's Handbook circa 1943... and a whole HOST of sources listed in the GWX manual) GWX dev teamers were not the victims of fictional 'propaganda' nor were they historical revisionists.

Ease of success breeds bad habits and false expectations.

Players have had it easy and have not been forced to think as submarine captains.

Your greatest weapons are not your torpedoes... and certainly not your deck gun.

Your greatest weapons are stealth and patience.

Typically what I see in those who complain is a sense that they can do no wrong. "I've been playing sub simulations for years and this isn't right because blah blah blah..."

It is easy to blame the mod instead of admitting complacency and the desire for instant gratification.

The people who built GWX, whatever their individual faults may be, are among the best that subsim has to offer.

Nothing under the sun that we do, or choose not to do, is going to make everyone happy. Tailoring the AI perception (or any element of GWX) to each individual's personal preference or interpretation is quite naturally impossible. I hope you will also understand that we don't really have any intention of helping users UNDO what we worked so hard to build... based on atypical experiences colored by individual wishes.

Months were spent tuning the ASW sensors in GWX... and months of code crunching, spent isolating sensors, determining their limits and "signal strength" at various ranges, and and interpretation (often leading to dead ends... you can't just plug in real life data and expect life-like results in SH3) preceeded the gradual changes and testing. From the original GW to GWX it continued to evolve. I'd rather have all my teeth pulled out with rusty pliers and no anesthetic, than to revisit it again!

One thing that we cannot change, is the experience base of the player... as your experience is not reduced with your simulated "death." There is no way to properly simulate U-boat warfare in any game... we can only approximate it. The player will always learn from a simulated death.

It is a good thing for us that when you die in SH3... you live to count rivets another day. You do not drown, or have to abandon ship, or be taken prisoner... You get to fight another day and carry the experience... and the desire to become a better U-boat captain.

In the end... the downloads do the talking. GWX 2.0 ALONE has been downloaded more than 10,000 times. Those are simply the ones that can be counted. I suspect a further 20,000 from other locations such as GameShadow, Atomic Gamer etc. If the AI (or any element) in GWX was so terrible, complaints about it would be incessant. I am not saying this to be bombastic or arrogant. I am saying it to drive home the points being made.

Seriously folks... if GWX causes you such distress, you have choices. Use them.

If anyone has put a gun to your head and forced you to use (and keep using) GWX... please raise your hand.

Stop complaining and get to patrolling.

[JScones]

Having now turned my attention to actually playing GWX 2.1 (with SH3Cmdr R3.1.2 and wow, if I may say so myself, what an experience), in consideration of restraints such as hard code limitations imposed by SH3 (and there IS a lot - static behaviour for all years is just one of many, and one reason why SH3Cmdr exists), I have to say that I'm not sure we could get anything better. No, GWX 2.1 is not perfect, but I don't see anyone saying that it is. I'm now in mid-1940 having started in Aug 1939 and with discipline, I've had good success. I've watched enemy Destroyers totally miss me even though I wasn't that far away. Why? Because I'm disciplined in my approach and use what I consider effective evasive measures. And in times where I have been bounced, as frustrating as they were, it was because of my own stupidity - staying surfaced, conning tower breach, or some other stupid behaviour of mine.

I may not like being seen many kms away in dense fog and then watching the Destroyer make a bee-line for me only to pound me into oblivion, but conversely, I don't like sitting on the surface waving to the enemy either while they earnestly look for me. Although on this last point, one convoy I attacked I sunk three merchants and the escorts went straight to where I was and hung around there. Of course, I was on the other side of the convoy at that point laughing at them, so evasion is possible and not that hard if you know what you are doing, at least in the early years. Come 1943 things may be different, but so too will my tactics.

Just my opinion, ymmv.

[the.terrabyte.pirate]

Originally Posted by Kpt. Lehmann

If anyone has put a gun to your head and forced you to use (and keep using) GWX... please raise your hand.

*Raises hand*

Balz made me do it. It wasn't exactly a gun, but he'd threatened me with a rendition of "Vanilla shIII isn't hoochie woochie enough" in his VIIB if I didn't install it. Now he's threatening a concert if I uninstall it.

Someone get him a type IX quick!!!

[johan_d]

Originally Posted by Kpt. Lehmann

Stop complaining and get to patrolling.

JAWOHL HERR KALEUN!