Destroyers Discussion (getting rid of pin point drops)

[Ducimus]

@ Redwine

Yeah i realize that low decimal values in the wave factor makes for deaf escorts. But 0 seems to turn off the factor entirely. Ive tested it a number of times. Why i don't know, it makes no logical sense since a value like 0.005 is utter deafness and 1.0 gives them them the ability to hear a Albacore fart at 300 meters 20 Kilmoters away,, but thats what it seems to do.

Try it out!

EDIT:

remeber these numbers are being fed into forumals used by the game. (http://www.mistari.com.au/shiii/shii...r_Formulas.htm )

zero times anything is always zero. zero divided by anything is always zero.


Oh ya, i love my new forum rank, seems appropriate given my fixation with the DD's passive sonar

[CB..]

Originally Posted by Redwine

mmhh.... :hmm: , if i dont understand bad you, my english is not good, you says, this 0,5 value make non sense on the game.

But i remember in my test, DDs become deaf, (nerf ?) when above the speed set there.....

Why 0.5 doesnt make the same ?

May because it is a decimal value ? may be it must to be > than 1 ?

May be the game takes the 0 part of the number instead 0,5 ?

What happens if you put 1, or 2 ?

May be the game takes 0 zero, and it nule the entry ?

you could be right there Red!

if it were taking 0.5 as the maximum speed for this sensor then you imagine they'd never detect you at all---

but i must admit that the convoy escorts do indeed spend a lot of their time stopped in the water when scanning so it could be reading it as 0.5 knots-- i'm not entirely sure why these sim.cfg entrys are having the effect they are-- it's down to Col's discovery that removing entrys from the sim.cfg has a marked effect on the sensors making them slightly "uber" -- how this works i'm not at all clear-- but i decided to try and exploit it and see where it went--

same thing on what Ducimus is saying really--i'm not sure

pretty sure the MECH entry is normal (tho i edited the entrys slightly for an unrelated mod)
wether the other entrys are having an effect i'm again not sure---if anything is causing the effects it's maybe the lack of an Sensitivity entry--


just had another of my test careers ended by a combination of an American single stacker--and a Brit Corvette


after a pretty hefty attack by half a dozen DD's i was left dealing with this American and the corvette--

the American made a DC run then backed off and sat completely stationary some distance away - and guided the corvette right over me blam blam --blam blam blam ---blam boom!!!

didn't even get chance to secure from silent running to make repairs - boat destroyed!

was a pretty hectic encounter all round---i didn't know which way to turn next lol-- detection meter was flashing red- orange- green- like a set of disco lights lol!!
i was trying to play more sensibly and not using the external view so much
to prevent it from being just another test if you see what i mean--that's the key really not using the external view habitually during DC attacks hikes the difficulty up by at least 300%

still i could have escaped if i had been paying attention? :hmm:

next time i'll try to attack from a little further out--

i wasn't detected untill at around 3000 metres-- flat calm seas--

so i had a brief window where-by if - i had been- in a good firing position i could have launched a spread and made a swift exit-- instead of which i went into th middle of the merchants and got into a right scrap with ALL the DD's at once-- was chaos--could hardly hear my self think for DC explosions lol!! at one point the external view looked more like a scene from Apocolypse Now than a subsim-- i could almost hear some DD captain saying " I love the smell of DC's in the morning" they were extremely p*ssed at me indeed

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by CB..

anything is causing the effects it's maybe the lack of an Sensitivity entry--

I totally overlooked that. That definatly is doing something.


Just To reiterate on my two favorite sim.cfg setings:

Here is my understanding of them. Lets imagine thse are knobs you can turn on a peice of equipment like a stereo.

Noise factor:(stock setting is 1.0)
1+---------------------0.5---------------------0
Low volume-----------middle-----------------Full blast!
DEAF----------------------------------------UBER

Wave factor:(stock setting is 0.5)
0------0.001------------------0.5---------------1
Off------Low volume-------------------------Full blast!
DEAF------------------------middle ---------------UBER

Individually thats how they seem to work, when you start mixing them is when things get fuzzy. Hmmm first reaction to these setting was to change noise to 0.5 (correct,) and wave factor to 0.20 or 0.25 (maybe incorrect). Natural assumption since thats how they scale.

Ill bet if anyone tried 0.5 noise and 0.75 they'd have some pretty uber ears in those DD's.

[CB..]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Just To reiterate on my two favorite sim.cfg setings:

Here is my understanding of them. Lets imagine thse are knobs you can turn on a peice of equipment like a stero.

Individually thats how they seem to work, when you start mixin them is when things get fuzzy.

yep that's exactly how i see it aswell-- same on the sensitivity entry being missing from my edit- i think this in some way over rules the noise and waves entrys as i haven't noticed huge differences between differing types of weather--

that's maybe why the speedfactor is perhaps helping to create some dynamics-- as the DD's can only use their hydrophones when at all stop--forcing them to work as a team--or guess where i am?
other wise they'd be un shakeable

[Ducimus]

You know.......

If you take a real good look at the default settings, DD's cant hear a whole lot, but if you look at what they can hear, the biggest thing that determins if we get detected, isnt if were at silent running or even if were at 2/3rd or dare i say flank speed..

the biggest determinate seems to be, the bloody weather. And i ask you all, how often do you have clear calm days in campigns?



Noise factor = 1.0 Default setting, also on the deaf end of the scale

Noise Factor


________________________RPM current

P noise = Noise Factor * (----------------- - 1)

_________________________RPM prag



RPM prag = percentage of maximum RPM

What doesnt make sense though is according to

http://www.mistari.com.au/shiii/shii...r_Formulas.htm

Note: If P noise <= 0 then object undetectable.

yet if we set our noise factor to 0 its like quite uber, maybe my math is wrong and im not looking at the equation correctly.




Wave factor =0.5 default, a Mid range setting.

Waves factor


__________________________Wave Height

P waves = 1 – Wave Factor *------------------

__________________________ Object Height

[CB..]

perhaps the noise factor and the waves factor are the same element--

the noise factor is the default unit of noise-- which is multiplied according to the waves factor ie weather?

perhaps if we look at the noise factor as how many decibels each notch on the waves factor "volume " control increases it by?

[HEMISENT]

Gouldjg.
A bit of feedback for you
Installed your passive tests and single missions
I ran two test missions so far.
Barham and U 505
My setup is:
patch 1.4b
RUB 1.45
Hollywood damage
(disabled harbor traffic/airpower/16km vis mods)
Barham;
At pd, speed 2kts, task force approaching from the left
sub icon green
Waiting for TF to close within striking range then I fired a salvo of 4 eels towards the approaching BBs.
My boat is positioned almost directly in the path of an escort yet he passes within 50m without a clue.
When the first BB in line is hit I instantly hear active pinging and the sub icon goes red. I immediately order crash dive thinking now were in for it.
Viewing with the F12 key I watch as all the escorts fan out approximately
1000m away and just mill around-very disorganized.
Unexpectedly the 3rd BB in line takes 3 hits-huge explosions. The escorts start pinging away once again. My sub icon goes to red but all the escorts continue going crazy about a mile away finally give up and leave.
Very disappointing.
****************
U 505;
Exact same scenario as I ran with CB's settings just a short while ago for comparison.
Surfaced then CD when closest escort was running parallel to me to get his attention. Took the boat down to 150m as the 1st escort made a hard turn to port and made a pass firing DCs and K guns. Luckily he let go a bit early and only caused minor damage. A 2nd DD comes in head on and makes a pass from bow to stern but drops his DCs late. My speed is still around 4-5 kts heading downward and the sub icon is green. Once escort #2's DCs start exploding off my stern I figure I'll escape in the confusion so I order ahead flank hoping all the noise will cover my getaway. The icon goes to red and here is a 3rd escort coming at me from my 180.
DD#2 continues to make passes to an area about 500m away.
My boat is now at 160m and escort #3 is heading my way fast. I go back to SR and the icon goes green. Escort #3 heads off some distance and drops his depth charges.
To wrap this up 3 escorts all gathered around an area where I was at the beginning of all this about 500-1000m away. I watched them repeatedly make pass after pass on the same spot in the distance. At 160m no amount of noise from my boat could entice them to come over and the icon remained green. I raised my depth to 140m/no Sr heading directly for the group icon green I then gradually increased speed heading toward them, finally about 500m away from the nearest escort the icon flicked to brown/red. That got their attention and one ship headed in my direction.
I immediately went to SR and the icon went green and the escort took off back to his pals.

My impression is that it was real hard to get the escorts to pay any attention whatsover. I experienced very little pinging in the Barham mission and only got pinged once at the beginning of the 505 mission.
The escort AI appeared completely confused and both times it seemed like they would pick one spot where they were convinced I was hiding and just clobber it repeatedly. It seemed almost as tho the escort AI was completely dumbed down.
In both missions there was a moment at the beginning where everything looked promising then all of a sudden their tactics just fell apart.
I'll fire up a campaign mission as it seems that singles play out differently than campaign missions.
more later

[Ducimus]

Im gonna go way out in the deepend here, but Honestly ive been thinking of them in terms of RF gain and squelch. (Think CB radios)

Heres the definitions, do they apply to this scenario? Ive been staring at it too long, and am "stuck in the box" so to speak.


RF Gain
Feature used to automatically boost the amplification of signals being received. As the received signal strength weakens, circuitry automatically compensates by applying more gain to one or more frequency amplifiers thus increasing signal strength. Iis also used to weaken a signal if it is detected as being excessively strong.


Squelch
Feature used to set the minimum signal strength level that will be received. Signals with strengths less than this level will not be heard.

The squelch is usually set to a minimum level to allow any strength signal to be heard. But there are some circumstances where a higher level is necessary for productive reception.



Is this metaphore applicable here? Because this is how ive been approaching this problem. I could be entirely wrong in my approach.

You could be right about them being of the same element. All they really are is subequations for a detection routine/algorythm.

[Ducimus]

I'm pretty sure everyones thinking "Shut up about the wave and noise factors already!"

Forgive me, but im compelled to think aloud for a minute. Maybe it will help.

If you look at the forumlas

http://www.mistari.com.au/shiii/shii...r_Formulas.htm

Noise factor has ALOT to do with how fast your moving your boat. Primary factors are Engine RPMS.

Wave factor has ALOT to do with how high are the waves and how high an object is.. (what object i dunno, probably the DD)


So heres my thought out loud.

Just how much of the subs noises do i want the DD's to hear, and just how far do i want them to hear it on a (clear/stormy) day?

Im gonna shut up and give it a rest now. :rofl:

[caspofungin]

so how do these formulas work? specifically, noise factor. is rpm current an absolute number eg 50 rpm or 137 rpm? or is it percentage of max rpm? or the aspect factor calculation?

i'm assuming the P values are probabilities. That would make sense of having a factor "detection time" -- eg detection time 1s, once every second the numbers are crunched, explaining why w/ a longer detection time, you can get closer.

[Ducimus]

OK folks for those who want to..

Try these settings. They maybe overkill, , it may not be, i dunno yet.


Detection time=1
Sensitivity=0.03
Height factor=0
Waves factor=0.75
Speed factor=10
Noise factor=0.45


What you should notice, in about 5 knot wind is the following:

1/3rd speed = meters goe red at 2900 meters
slow speed = meter goes red at 2000 meters
Silent speed = meter goes red at about 700-800 meters
at 2 knots = metere goes red at about 450.

In a 15 knot wind youll get the following:
1/3d = red at 1700 meters
slow = 900
silent = undetectable.


Now with this in mind, edit your AI_sensor.dat and make the minimum distance for passive sonars about 400-450 meters. (your choice, im going to go with 400 meters). This way you can creep around at silent speed at 2 knots and have a green meter.

Also suggest to make active sonar minimum distance around 170 to 200.

I beleive these setting are what i'm looking for, for my own game. Try them out if you like. On a clear calm day, your going to be on walking on eggshells, in rough weather you have alot more comfort, but your not totally safe.

I expect these settigns will make those massive tonnage scores drop. It really puts more emphases on your approach ahead of the convoy because once the convoy gets there you wont be able to move around very fast. But this is all speculation, its time to play! At least for me it is

[gouldjg]

@Hemisent


If and when a DD decides to go on hunt mode (this is another mystery to me that also seems to be Randomised both in single mission and campaign). Far too many times do DD just hop along and do nothing after you have hit a ship, so I have given in about their intelligence side as I suspect that part is govened somewhere else.

I suspect that I could spend all week fine tuning evrything on the sensors to be at historical ranges but at the end of the day the DD in this game just simply do not have the human behaviour so there is a flaw and the system has to be cheated like CB says.

My passive setting work on approach to a convoy etc etc but they fails to make a DD commit to a attack. They just make em nosey.

He will come snooping at his last contact point and maybe drop a few dc. If in the meantime, If I have gotten out of his active ranges and gone silent, then all he is stuck with, is the last contact point and thus he will just stay there in a small circle till his search time has expired and then move on.

Now Something else is at work as to whether or not other DD's join in on this and that is yet to be uncovered. Also when a ship is hit, there is something totally different at work here (going back to some leader or commander theory)


If we could crack the acive sonars to behave better without having uber lock ons then we may get somewhere but realism has to be lost.

In the same way that CB is maybe looking at the passives so as to almost guarentee the DD,s do something instead of just chugging along.

This is why I am waiting upon Redwines active sonar tweaks to get beams etc narrowed down and have some blind spots etc etc.

It will be a monster to handle but that is the way I am going to go unless we can hack the search patterns and triggers to make DD's HUNT rather than patrol.


Because I play my normal game with all warnings switched off including the "we have been detected lines etc etc" I do suspect that the game will become much more difficult in campaign anyway.


At the moment I think everyone here knows what the problems are but now we are trying to find the DD's behaviour to work more aggressive without dumbing down one side too much or ubering another to much.

We can only play with the DD,s sensors for the time being to try and get them to look like they are being intelligent on the battlefield instead of dummies or super ubers.

I am convinced there are other rules at work concerning DD bahaviour but am clueless as to where to look at them. Maybe there are no other rules and DD are tottally sensor reactive.

In any one of our methods, you will find the faults if you look hard enough but compared to stock, either one will be better.


@Hemisent

Could you just check the passives for me, as I have yet to deal with the other stuff. i.e. just check how close you can get to DD or escorted convoys at diffeent speeds.

Also, just check the pinpoint drops by being flippant in your tactic to see how random dc's drop.

Thats the part I am upto, the rest I am dealing with later as results come in.


@others

Looking at the bahaviour between random types of attacks, what else could possibly be affecting the DD's.

I was wondering if it had something to do with the fact that some are assigned as escorts and some are not in the campaign files.

Maybe when they are escort, they stick to convoy in tight formation but are limited on available actions and when other, they have more free reighns but maybe not look as good as escorted convoy.

If anyone has any ideas on this, I am all ears. Like I say, I do not care how much history is bent as long as I get better game. If I need to assighn hunter groups in early war then so be it.

[CB..]

Originally Posted by gouldjg

In the same way that CB is maybe looking at the passives so as to almost guarentee the DD,s do something instead of just chugging along.

that's basically it--i'm use-ing the uber effect from the odd sim.cfg entrys to garantue i get detected-- and luckily am finding ways to make that unpredictable --

ie when the sub meter goes red---the DD's is just suspiciuos (in gameplay terms) last night i was able to sit at scope depth silent running about 3000 metres away from the lead convy escort- the meter was red- the DD was using it's searchlights BUT it wasn't in any way sure where i was so was slowly creeping along trying to get a fix---other DD's were doing the same--the results was i was able to get within firing range of the merchants in real terms undetected--( heck the DD's have got a right to to their job --they must have had far more fasle alarms than genuine sub contacts--i hate the way the game uses the DD's like a light switch--- switch them on switch them off switch them on switch them off again ----sigh--- -- if they WERE human they'd be checking out false alarms on a fairly regular basis --)

as it was i was in a completely use less position for a torpedo attack so heaed into the convoy and by that time i had been confirmed as a target and the DD's were starting tto attack-- eventually they killed me but only after i was able to sink a couple of merchants--


when the DD's are as dumb as mine have been they're no point being subtle with the edits--


mind you i surprised by the lack of aggression in the single missions that folks have tested--it may be that this is only a good soloution for convoy escorts where the AI tactics incorporate slow moving and even stationary DD's (the DD's hydrophone only being uber whilst the DD is stationary)
convoy escorts are programmed to periodically stop dead in the water and just listen--
perhaps task force escorts and hunter killer groups don't have the instruction--

the convoy escorts will stop dead in the water turn side onto the convoy and wait at all stop for around 2 minutes periodically-- even if there isn't any sub near by--

task force escorts are relying on the speed of the task force for their main protection--- and hunter killers are relying on their radar for initial detection---

i've been playing the campaign now since it came out and i have never yet managed to get within visual range of a taskforce so im not worried about them so much--hunter killers might be an issue-- but for me it's the convoys that are the back bone of the game--so if they work i'll put up with anything--

[Redwine]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Noise factor = 1.0 Default setting, also on the deaf end of the scale

What doesnt make sense though is according to

http://www.mistari.com.au/shiii/shii...r_Formulas.htm

Note: If P noise <= 0 then object undetectable.

yet if we set our noise factor to 0 its like quite uber, maybe my math is wrong and im not looking at the equation correctly.

I cant understand well...... i have same problem as you here.

That formula is for our sub noise ...... or i am wrong ?
The noise factor in Hydrophones at Sim.cfg is for DDs ...... i am wong ?

Anyway..... looking at our sub.

Low and Silent Running prop turns are 130, max turns at Flank are 300.

130 is 43.33 % of 300.

Then ..... for Silent running turns :

130/ 43.33 = 3

3 - 1 = 2

Then :

P noise = Noise factor x 2

To have a P Noise equal or lower than 0 (zero) to be undetectable at silent running turns.........

We need to input a Noise Factor zero or negative..... OK, but...

Then ............ we will be undetectable at any otehr RPM even at flank turns...... :hmm:

I am wrong ?

If we input a positive Noise Factor...... we never will be undetectable, because the value will be always > 0, even at half knot turns........... :hmm:

I am wrong ? :hmm:

I cant undestand this formula......

[Redwine]

Originally Posted by CB..

that's basically it--i'm use-ing the uber effect from the odd sim.cfg entrys to garantue i get detected-- and luckily am finding ways to make that unpredictable --

Store the files a secure place.

Originally Posted by CB..

ie when the sub meter goes red---the DD's is just suspiciuos (in gameplay terms) last night i was able to sit at scope depth silent running about 3000 metres away from the lead convy escort- the meter was red- the DD was using it's searchlights BUT it wasn't in any way sure where i was ...........

The sthealt meter was red, sure because you was picked-up by radar ..... i am wrong ?

Originally Posted by CB..

so was slowly creeping along trying to get a fix---other DD's were doing the same--the results was i was able to get within firing range of the merchants in real terms undetected--( heck the DD's have got a right to to their job --they must have had far more fasle alarms than genuine sub contacts--

Well, if you was at silent running it may be real, but you must to be licky to be able to manage your attack at that speed, you must to overpass the convoy and wait for them as a sitting duck.
Plus note in AI_Sensors, sensors has a ceiling, how do you have adjusted those ceilings ? are enought up to detect you at periscope depth ? Try adjusting them to zero......... those false contacts may be due you are in the limit, actives are set at -10m, may be your periscope depth is set at 12 ? I use 13m.

Or may be to a some radar contacts, remember if your scope is under 1m it is not detected, when the waves moves and surface moves, your scope elevation rise and down, may be the cause of those false contacs ?

Originally Posted by CB..

mind you i surprised by the lack of aggression in the single missions that folks have tested--it may be that this is only a good soloution for convoy escorts where the AI tactics incorporate slow moving and even stationary DD's (the DD's hydrophone only being uber whilst the DD is stationary)

That can be a problem for single mission adjust.... :hmm:

Originally Posted by CB..

convoy escorts are programmed to periodically stop dead in the water and just listen--
perhaps task force escorts and hunter killer groups don't have the instruction--

the convoy escorts will stop dead in the water turn side onto the convoy and wait at all stop for around 2 minutes periodically-- even if there isn't any sub near by--

task force escorts are relying on the speed of the task force for their main protection--- and hunter killers are relying on their radar for initial detection---

In the mission Barhman, they some times stops to listen, but i dont remember if it was with speciphied settings...... or they do it always, i will take atetion...... :hmm:

Originally Posted by CB..

i've been playing the campaign now since it came out and i have never yet managed to get within visual range of a taskforce so im not worried about them so much--hunter killers might be an issue-- but for me it's the convoys that are the back bone of the game--so if they work i'll put up with anything--

Undestand, and may be you are right, any way will be great if we can discover a pack of settings giving us a good behavior in both situations, convoy and task force behavior...... may be hard :hmm: