WHEN to auto active intercept / TMA ?

[Palindromeria]

I find that i very much enjoy playing with absolutely NO autocrew as sub.
its much more satisfying than a "point and click" kill.

however, in missions with lots of contacts this becomes next to impossible. particularly if contact(s) are consistently erratic about changing course and speed. inevitably the map just becomes a million frustrating lines of bearings. sometimes i m pausing the game for extended periods to identify classify mark and do tma on contacts. or both. either way its not especially fun for me.

someone told me that "elder" subcommand players felt something on the
order of 3 or 4 simultaneous contacts was about as much as an "average" player could really deal with effectively before leaning on autocrew.
i think he was referring to 3 or 4 other human subs not sure.

anyways, just wondering at what point sub players start leaning on the autocrew for active intercept and tma ?

[LuftWolf]

I always use the autocrew for active intercept and never use the autocrew for TMA.

[MaHuJa]

For active intercept, I would recommend autocrew. The only case of autocrew doing a suboptimal job is when you have incoming pings on average every couple seconds - then it skips some of them.

With active intercept, the ability to do it manually is far more present than for the EW/ESM on the ffg/helo/p3, since you get audio notification of the event. They need it more - but with them, turning it off allows classification.

Some do prefer to play with active intercept autocrew off, but I do not know why.


As for TMA... with many contacts, tma slows down considerably regardless of autocrew, but with a player efficient at manual tma, that player can prioritize the most important targets a lot better. If there is a huge clutter of related contacts, say, a convoy seen from both sphere and towed, then the autotma is the master at determining which pairs belong together.


Manual TMA on the ffg is problematic, due to some shortcomings of the interface.


Some players follow a method of ignoring, not tracking or even dropping, contacts of no interest. Interesting contacts being assigned targets, threat ships, and neutrals that might get caught by their shots.

[suBB]

Originally Posted by Palindromeria

anyways, just wondering at what point sub players start leaning on the autocrew for active intercept and tma ?

...never ever EVER..

but thats just the 688i in me i suppose.. im so used to years and years of no autocrew i guess...

TMA:

handling a high number of contacts is just sense of priority and ruling hunches and assumptions out.. if i have contacts on possible subs or target of interest, ill assign trackers to investigate, but will not keep tracker and attempt solutiion until i have additional info or further reason to justify keeping tracker assignment.

Active Intercept:

depends on the situation.. if someone is going active for whatever reason.. with some maneuvers you can locate TX source on active alone. This also ties into the justification of keeping tracker assignment as this is a valid reason to keep said tracker in a high contact environment.

However if the situation is threat orientated, then ill consider evasion and determine how severe the threat is.. if it isnt that severe ill continue scanning... if very severe then go into evasion..

[LuftWolf]

I can't think of a reason to ever go with the Active Intercept autocrew off...

[MaHuJa]

Originally Posted by LuftWolf

I can't think of a reason to ever go with the Active Intercept autocrew off...

There's the first line of my previous reply...

[suBB]

Originally Posted by MaHuJa

Some do prefer to play with active intercept autocrew off, but I do not know why.

my reason being.. easier for me to keep a mental note with it off.. and in the info gathering process, actIntercept is on an 'as required basis' than not.. typically when i Rx active intercepts when i do not want them is false contact resolve and/or manual solution plot - a time i rather not be disturbed or interrupted with unwanted/unecesssary info...

threat-wise, common sense tells you whats going on.. even without looking at active intercept

it simply boils down to what you are comfortable with and personal preferences..

autocrew ActIntercept and TMA have been off since 1997.. and will remain that way :P

@ MaHuJa and LW..

other than personel pref. what are your reasons to keep auto ActInt on?

[Deathblow]

My personal gameplay style?

I *always* use autoactiveintercept. Its really doesn't add to the gameplay to have to race to the active intercept screen and catch a mark every time a contact pings... feels more distracting than immersive.

I use autoTMA most of the time, after initially detecting and plotting a prelimenary feel for the targets local, its good to provide updates on target manuvers whenever busy with something else, or timecompressing forward in the mission... whenever I want to "refine" the solution, I turn autoTMA off, do manual merging, fine turn what solutions seem best, because it can be inaccurate a lot of the time.

on a side note, I hate those contact mad environments as well, espeically convoy attacks where trying to track and distinguish friend from foe, primary targets from escorts is a labor intensive pain, so I've made a few customizations like more trackers for the subs and no bearing ambiguity for the TA, to give command less of a technical and more of a strategic feel.... works for me, but keeps me from being able to play multiplayer. *shrug*

[LuftWolf]

I always use the active intercept autocrew because I want to know right away when a new active sonar ping comes across the set, as well as having automatic bearing updates fed to the TMA on active sonars that I have been tracking.