Merchant zig-zagging.

[Excalibur Bane]

I've noticed among the improvements for the AI in 1.3, was of course the merchant's zig-zagging routine. This is probably a case of personal taste, but I'm finding it to be utter madness, especially with the small convoys of two or three ships. They randomly change course and speed every second or so, which screws up my torpedos something awful because I'm usually a decent pace out (1500-2000 meters). Sad thing is, I'm not even using manual targetting and I'm still missing something fierce once I've been detected by them.

They also to scatter in random directions, instead of at least trying to head vaguely in the direction of their original destination. I've never actually bothered to follow one, but do they continue to zig-zag until the end of time or do they resume their regular route after a set period of time?

I'm not a big realism nut, but somehow I can't picture a merchant ship doing that in reality so quickly, after all the orders would have to get down to the engine room, corrections wouldn't be that quick. I'm probably wrong though.

I definately wouldn't mind this getting toned down a touch in a mod.

[orangenee]

It's a good point you make, they shouldn't really be able to turn that quick, they're like rally cars sometimes...

[kv29]

If they happen to see you, expect that kind of behaviour, as it was in real life. Some task forces did that on regular bases (even if not being attacked) to prevent.... well, you know what :p

Having said that, I´ve not seen a convoy zigzagging if they did not see me first, YET...

[tater]

They don't do real zig zag patterns, only the reactive stuff we see in game (which looks more like conatsnt helming).

To do a ZZ off base every 15 minutes means setting up the waypoints to do it...

luckily mcoca made the automated camapign editor.

tater

[FAdmiral]

In my new 3 merchants test mission, I watched them come single file
(no zig-zag) down the pike. After I torped the leader, the other 2 took
off in opposite directions at flank speed ziging and a zaging. I chased one
down (he was doing 13 knots) and finally got him. The other was nowhere to
be seen. But I did pick up his sound sig. I raced over to find him back on the
base course but not zig-zaging. I had damaged him with some deck gun shells
so he was not going fast. At least this is much better than to have them
mill about doing 2 knots or so.....

JIM

[tater]

I'm so used to the "generic merchants" speed limit that I forgot some are faster than others.

Looks like I need to make up some "fast convoys" for the next version!



tater

[nomdeplume]

Originally Posted by Excalibur Bane

They randomly change course and speed every second or so, which screws up my torpedos something awful because I'm usually a decent pace out (1500-2000 meters). Sad thing is, I'm not even using manual targetting and I'm still missing something fierce once I've been detected by them.

No offence, but why would you expect to be able to hit ships which know you're there from over 1.5kms away? The only hope you would have is to fire a very wide spread of lots of torpedos, hoping to cover everywhere the ship might possibly end up. If the target is manuevering, I tend to only fire from within 1km max (pref <600) with the fish set to high speed. Normally this will get a hit.

Really, you want to avoid being detected in the first place. The first indication of your presence should be the torpedos striking home! Normally I get ahead of the convoy, very deep, very slow (stopped sometimes) until the lead escort passes, then up to PD to unleash hell. Auto targetting makes this approach workable.

Originally Posted by Excalibur Bane

They also to scatter in random directions, instead of at least trying to head vaguely in the direction of their original destination. I've never actually bothered to follow one, but do they continue to zig-zag until the end of time or do they resume their regular route after a set period of time?

I don't know what's historically accurate, but in SH4 they seem to go all over the place, then reform back into a convoy after a while. Seems reasonably realistic.

[Excalibur Bane]

Originally Posted by nomdeplume

No offence, but why would you expect to be able to hit ships which know you're there from over 1.5kms away? The only hope you would have is to fire a very wide spread of lots of torpedos, hoping to cover everywhere the ship might possibly end up. If the target is manuevering, I tend to only fire from within 1km max (pref <600) with the fish set to high speed. Normally this will get a hit.

Really, you want to avoid being detected in the first place. The first indication of your presence should be the torpedos striking home! Normally I get ahead of the convoy, very deep, very slow (stopped sometimes) until the lead escort passes, then up to PD to unleash hell. Auto targetting makes this approach workable.

Err. I guess I didn't word that right, I start at 1500 meters, undetected, fire off a salvo of one to two torpedoes per target, depending on size. More often then not of course, the initial torpedoes don't get the job done and they know by the gaping holes in their ships that I'm there and start zagging. I do close after that, usually under 1000 meters or thereabouts, I always set the torpedoes to fast. I'm speaking strictly of lone merchants with no escorts, the 2 or 3 sized convoys, normal convoys are a different story.

An encounter I had earlier tonight was a good example, I came across a convoy of two Large Modern Tankers going at a good pace. I setup well ahead of them at PD and waited for them to pass by until I lined up a good solution on both of them, fired off four torpedoes, all hits. Two per tanker. Neither of them sunk from the initial torpedo hits, despite the raging infernos that the ships had become. I waited to see if they would flood and sink, but they didn't. I ended up surfacing and giving them both a coup de grace with the deckgun. I hit both of them directly in the tanks and another near the aft. At least they slowed down a bit