Destroyers Discussion (getting rid of pin point drops)

[CB..]

well i edited the 505 mission to put me just out side visual range at scope depth ahead of the taskforce--

here's the lat long entrys for the player sub if you want to try this Red

Long=-2327500.000000
Lat=2586520.000000
Height=-15.000000



there's probably some randomisation for the position of the taskforce but anything is a more balanced test than appearing in the worst possible location at the start of the mission (how did you get there ? undetected and un harmed anyway!)

i was able to slowly creep in at silent but got detected at about 1500 metres from the lead DD---went deep (didn't have a good angle on the carrierfor a fair shot) and rode out a very prolonged attack from al 5 of the DD's (taking it in turns as they somtimes do)

took some minor damage but they did their job and i wasn't able to get up the scope depth to attack the carrier--

well i could have tried blowing ballast going to flank and hoping i could get up launch and get back down again before i was killed -- but that seemed un feasibly risky with the lives of the crew at astake if you follow the role play attitude i take-not against a late war task force any way--)

one particular DD was more stubborn than the rest and even after the task force had passed by and was gone - this lone DD remained un shake-able and it slowly began to take it's toll on the hull integrity and so -on--
damage here damage there --

i wouldn't have said it was uber as it was only sciring damage with it's hedgehogs ( and thats to me an uber weapon anyway so i expect it to be )

considering the DD's have 8 k-gun launchers 4 on each side and the normal DC racks the fact that he was only getting hits with his hedgehogs says a lot--

over-all i'd say that i didn't find them uber-- and certainly there was no pin point drops at any moment-- in the context of full campaign and career gameplay i would rarely if at all come across a late war taskforce that i would attack with-out waiting untill more favourable conditions-- and if that meant letting it go by then so be it!! (tell the brass hats back at base we had engine trouble if they insist on an explanation!)
i'd get some distance from the task froce - radio it in-- let the Lutwaffe have a go at the thing if it's so dang important !!

only kidding about Red--but you see what i mean!


i've been playing the career mode --
( this is the first time i've had a go with any of the single missions other than a bit of testing with Col's brit subs)
--now since the game came out and i still haven't gotten within range of a campaign taskforce in time to have a go at it!!
so these sorts of staged and extremely rare ecounters don't seem to be a good way to test stuff IMO

tho i can see your point

but for me it's the mid war routine of finding and attacking convoys that is the heart of the game- and surviving the "war" as a role play attitude!!
so that's where i concentrate my testing and tweaks


i never do get trouble from pin point DC drops so it's not much use comparing results it has to be pondered-- :hmm:

if i had been unable to shake that last DD and it looked like i wasn't going to be able to shake him then that would have been uber--

but if the DC drops actually did create a period of time where the DD sensor were blind (then i would have been able to escape no doubtabout it-- so that's a huge uber issue for the DD's

[CB..]

here's a thought (oh no not another one lol!)

what if it was possible to add the decoy sensor effects to the depth charges---?

this would work very well especailly with two or more DD's around -- it wouldn't "blind" them during DC attacks of course but it would confuse them a lot--for brief periods of time giving similar results

a bit of an advanced job -but for the "deep file" experts perhaps a worthy cause?

[Marhkimov]

Originally Posted by marhkimov

The last thing we need is another never-ending thread such as the 8km visibility thread...

Sorry guys, that didn't come out the way I intended.

I just meant to say our long term goal should be to make a real mod, even though everyone is still in the middle of experimentation. If you will remember what happened in the 8km mod thread, people were testing and testing and testing, yet almost no real mod came of it. Every once in a while someone would release a beta test mod, but that's it... Then the thread just kind of died down, and no one ever came back.

So I'm really only saying one thing... Lets make a useful mod before the topic becomes redundant, ok?

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone. I am really looking forward to this myself, so I hope you guys keep up the good work.


Marhkimov.

[CB..]

Originally Posted by marhkimov

Sorry guys, that didn't come out the way I intended.

I just meant to say our long term goal should be to make a real mod, even though everyone is still in the middle of experimentation. If you will remember what happened in the 8km mod thread, people were testing and testing and testing, yet almost no real mod came of it. Every once in a while someone would release a beta test mod, but that's it... Then the thread just kind of died down, and no one ever came back.

So I'm really only saying one thing... Lets make a useful mod before the topic becomes redundant, ok?

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone. I am really looking forward to this myself, so I hope you guys keep up the good work.


Marhkimov.

cheers Marhkimov

i think the thing that's driving us all crazy here is that not all of us are having the same problems---

some folks keep getting uber DD's that nail you on the first pass- blam dead--
and others have exactly the opposite problem -- useless DD's that couldn't find a whale in a swimming pool if it was sing the national anthem AND waving a flag at the same time lol!!

and just to really confuse matter even further (as if that's wasn't enought !)
some folks are getting both at the same time and or alternatively at random--

i dunno how the heck a mod CAN be made


perhaps a POLL is in order? find out how many folks have which problem
and then maybe produce two mods for a bit of insightfull testing

one for the uber DD's one for the useless DD's

i know Guoldjg is hoping to produce a full on mod---

but i think the rest of as more just trying to get some decent gameplay for our own game (not being sure that any changes will work on other peoples set ups) bit mad really hence the frustration showing requently! (and my spelling going down the pan )

[gouldjg]

Good idea but way beyond me at the moment :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

I kind of knew people would start feeling bad as though they might be wasting time comming up with innovations and ideas because of the statement about making this a long thread.

Guys

I don't think Marhkimov meant any real ill feelings by that post and he probably just wanted to help us out and get our perspectives back on track. I know I need reminding now and again as I tend to do too many things at once and go like a bull at the gate.


Say as much as you wish and don't feel guilty about trying something completely new. What may seem silly now is usually a big clue for future work.

At the moment, I am completely removing all references to crew ratings in the campaighn and mission files.

I am getting rid of crew totally. If this does not work, I am setting them all to elite. In fact I am setting everything to elite.

I feel so strong on the hunch that sensitivity along with some other issues are affected by crew rating, that I am getting rid of that possibility to test.

I am going to add all sensors to the sim.cfg and duplicate the actives with the sonar settings and the passives with the hydro settings.

I am looking at the sub sensor .cfg and notice a few things here that makes the sub crew behave better than the ai ship crews. E.g. waves factors etc etc.

I am also curious about decay time. Is this just a map decay or do you think it could be similar to the lose contact.

Anyway, I am working on long shots and hunches here but if it fails, I have a backup of my last tweaks that seem to improve things.

CB, When you got your results with hydro, what ranges were set in the sensors and also what range was you detected at max.

You see I had this also but never removed anything from the cfg, I just increased the ranges of all passives.

I would rather understand what was affecting the range than by just simply removing the factor that could have been effecting this.

There may be others i.e. noise factors etc but this can be looked at later.

I would almost bet money that should we be able to set all sensitivity to the same, we would notice that the levels remain no matter what crewrating is. It is what's what's that we need to understand. I think the Dev team really went to work on this with massive plans but time forced them to overlook the minor details.

Now remember when in early versions of the game, we could simply out flank falling dd's. Did the devs tweak the fall speed or something else?

[Marhkimov]

Yeah CB, that is exactly the problem that I am seeing... How the heck are you guys gonna make a mod out of all this?


I'm just worried that once you guys finally manage to crack the DD problems, you won't make a mod... Or you won't be able to make a mod. That would leave me and everyone else high and dry.

You see, I wish I could join in on the testing and modding myself, but I'm just not strong enough to understand passive sonar, active sonar, angles and ranges and hydrophones and radar, and on and on and on... It's just kind of overwhelming to me... But I acknowledge the problem with the DD's in my own copy of SH3 and I am hoping you guys get it all sorted out.


Anyways... You guys should get back to work... I have my own mods to tend to.


Marhkimov.

[Ducimus]

Well ive been trying to recreate some of what you folks have been doing for the sake of my own enjoyment of the game. To that end i finally figured out how to use the SH3 mini tweaker. Pretty nifty program.

Here's what ive changed so far.

1.) Made it JSGME compatiable for easy rollbacks

2.) Went through the improved convoy's mod and replaced every instance of crew rating 1 and 2, to crew rating 3. Leavign the 4's alone. If this doesnt produce results ill bump them all to 4, if that doesnt work ill remark them all out.


3.) Edited Sim.cfg to the following:
[Hydrophone]
Detection time=0.1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=0.0 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=15 ;[kt]
Noise factor=1.00 ;[>=0]

Im going to reduce the speed factor to like 5 or 7 later on. Whats the 0.03 sensitivity do by the way? What happends if i 0 that out?


4. Edited AI Sensors.dat:
- increased hydrophones to 30,000 max distance
- Increased active sonar by 200 meters and gave it a 170 min distance


5. Edited depthcharges. sim /zon
- Reduced acurracy to 25 meters
- Played with radius, from 20 to 15 back to 20.

6. Edited Contacts.cfg
(cause its alot of fun seen an active map :rotfl: )

7. Edited sub files to obtain deeper depths.. 300, 350, 400, 450 meters.

Collectively what can you say all these changes will do?

Just playing with the U505 mission, very hard to tell if its making any difference. I havent had time to try a war patrol yet. Sometimes they pick me up right away, other times they don't.

One intresting thing is right after i sent my torpedo spead out the the carrier, i dunked the periscope, left the engine at 2 knotts (i forget to stop them), and advanced time compression whilst in the conning tower to so i can watch the stopwatch.

Dropping time compression back to 1 about 20 seconds before torpedo impact, i heard , "were getting pinged sir". This was the escort that was the closest and had since gone away AT LEAST 2000 meters, more like 4000. So he obviously came back. I think he either heard my engines, or heard the sound of the torpedo's, im not sure.


On pin point accuracy.

One thing ive noticed is that the deeper you are the less accurate their going to be. In the past, even at 300 depth, with 0 min distance on the active sonar, they'd still drop them in the pickle barrel. With a 150 min distance, the hedgehogs are still make me cry. If your in external camera and see them hit the water, you have JUST enough time at 300 meters to go ahead flank and full rudder - and even then its a crap shoot. Anyway the depth charges going at 300 meters at 2 knots always fall astern. At a 15 explosion radius, is not much fun. Since i like going deep, im going to bump the radius back to 20 and see how it turns out. An intresting notion of this is it REALLY makes getting detected at shallower depths ALOT more hair raising.. going deep is the only thing that will save me - and that i like.

Ill run a patrol as soon as im able. IF anyone else can suggest other changes to my setup, please do. The day i surfaced 4000 meters abeam of a convoy in broad daylight in 1943 and seeing the piss poor escort reaction, i knew this had to change. As it is, as i think CB said, its a mighty pretty screensaver.

[gouldjg]

Hi Ducimus

1. Try setting your hedgehogs to 300 depth and 300 precision. You get some duds now so this should even the field if we ever set them to be deadly as in real life. I do not know if there were many duds but I like it

If you want, have a go at 400 * 300 just to cover the depth.

Thats the one Good contribution I can make :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

2. I am totally removing all crew ratings at the moment but was thinking of doing as you are doing if this first plan does not work very well. I really do think the different crew ratings affect the game sensors in a bad way. Untill we get a hex expert opinion on the sensitivity numbers, we are stuck to speculation at the moment. I would prefer there to be only minor differences but if the air cfg is anything to go bye, I suspect penalties between to be too severe.

3. I also set the main Hydrophone setting to 30 km and then tripled all passives. If you go back a page or two, you will see my settings as far as the sim.cfg was concerned. Let me tell you, all though it was well exagerated, it felt Very cool on the happy times mission when I was detected as soon as I went above one third. Rememebr that you have to be below 10mtre depth also for the DD to register. I am just after getting better more relaistic ranges for this and then I am happy. I do know that the silent running works, even when the uber hydro are close bye.

4. Remember to also remove or change crew in the mission files as well as the campaign.

Side notes

I notice that the sub sensor cfg has different values MAYBE to give advantages to the player who knows.

Maybe some of these values should be given to the ai sensors i.e.

;Hydrophone
Hydrophone range factor=1 ;[>=0]
Hydrophone fog factor=0 ;[>=0]
Hydrophone light factor=0 ;[>=0]
Hydrophone waves factor=0.2 ;[>=0]
Hydrophone speed factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Hydrophone enemy speed=0 ;[>=0]
Hydrophone aspect=0 ;[>=0]
Hydrophone noise factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Hydrophone sensor height factor=0 ;[>=0]
Hydrophone already tracking modifier=20 ;[detection probability modifier]
Hydrophone decay time=150 ;[>0] already tracking bonus decay, in seconds
Hydrophone uses crew efficiency=true


On the subject of pin point.

I have not really had any specific uber pin points since setting min ranges to 200. Remember folks, even though I have set min range to 200, the wave factor and noise factors may be shortening that number to be more like 50 depending on which piece of equipment is hunting you. I think this is what is happening on that subject and it is just a matter of tweak and testing now.

The down side is that should we play with the wave or noise too much, one extreme effects the other. So if i set the actives to not be so affected by waves etc, they will become better at the min distance cos the nullifying is removed.


On the subject of Mods

For everyones interest. There will be no major mod from me untill things are fully figured out. I will eventually post my version of the game settings but I am pretty sure it will then go into the usual debates about realism and not please everyone. I am no longer sure I want to handle the flak on such a issue.

At the moment, I am speculating on everything and am pretty sure the others feel the same. If we then get a common ground (huh that will be the day), then we can start to think about a major AI mod.

I would rather approach this as we are doing at the moment. Test a theory and post a speculation, idea etc.

When we all start to fully understand the rules, well then it is time for someone to do the super long thread on all results so that people can make their own changes or quite simply posting things in small packs i.e. hydrophone pack, pin point pack, etc etc.

I just wish we looked at this earlier when there was a strong RUB team. I also wish other mod developers would get on board with this and share their opinions.

Wish Wish Wish, thats all i seem to be doing.

[HEMISENT]

Guys, regarding the idea that some people have uber DD's and never experience the opposite and other people have totally stupid DD behavior
and rarely run up against truly superior/elite DD opposition.
For just a moment consider this. There were four versions of the game introduced EMEA dvd, EMEA download, US dvd, US download. (also patches for each of those versions)I live in the US but I received an EMEA dvd disc in my pre-ordered shipment. The guy 60 miles away received a US dvd-why? Who is to say that perhaps just perhaps a minor change was made to the game either intentionally or in error which caused the game to play differently from one version to another, or maybe just one small aspect of the game to play out differently.
In all the back and forth testing going on here one person edits a file and the game reacts but another person edits that exact same file and experiences something totally opposite. All of you are comparing files and ideas and brainstorming until your hair starts smoking but no one has yet to ask "which version of the game do you have?".
Anyway, being the cynical, devious type that I am this is just the way I think. Absolutely no intention of pointing fingers here just another "what if" scenario. The devs knew what kind of hardcore simmers & realism fanatics some of us are, they knew exactly what kind of intended audience they were playing to. Is this another Easter Egg that being opened 9 mos later?
As my dad would say Food for Thought.

[CB..]

Originally Posted by gouldjg

CB, When you got your results with hydro, what ranges were set in the sensors and also what range was you detected at max.

?

what i found was i could increase the max range of the hydrophones
to any amount what so-ever
i went right out to 40,000 metres max range--

and this actually did nothing absolutely nothing--nada lol!
//
i really wonder somewhat whether changes to the AI_sensor.dat actually have any effect at all---or are so influenced by other factors that the end result can be the same--
///

the most powerfull method of control hydrophone range is via the noise and waves factor

the noise factor is a consitent figure -- the waves factor obviuosly changes according to the weather-- flat calm gives longer effective hydrophone ranges than stormy etc--

removing the noise and waves factor gives the longest hydrophone range of all (from Col's discovery)

try this

set the noise and waves factor to zero

run a test - note your detection ranges approximaitlley

then remove the entrys altogether

and run the test--note the ranges

the most powerfull message from Col's discovery that the game doesn't need the sim.cfg entrys to run - is that some where there are a set of "game default" settings for the sensors---

i need to say extremely loudly here

I HAVE NEVER EVER EXPERIENCED A PIN POINT DC DROP FROM ANY DD THAT COULDN'T BE EXPLAINED BY PURE BAD LUCK-- OR ME "WALKING INTO IT"

the reason i say that so "loudly" (and my apologies for doing so) is that it happens so rarely as to be quite spooky to wonder what the odds are that at least every now and again a DD would by the law of averages land one smack on the nose-- yet it allmost never happens--

you see for me and the other folks whose DD's are primarily useless 90% of the time--it isn't going to make any difference at all if the min height is this or the max range is that or the angle of the other is anything at all--the DD's are useless!!!

and so far the only fix for this-- that consistently works time after time-- is Col's find regarding the sim.cfg--ie removing some of the hydrophone entrys completely and using those ones you don't remove intelligently to
balance the results out "to taste" as it were--



folks keep asking me to test this and that on the basis that their DD's are uber-- and they want to stop the pin point drops---

there's no point asking me!!!
as stock my DD's are blind as a bat---you feel honoured if they drop dc's at all LOL--never mind if they drop one in the same hemisphere as you!!!



one or two other folks are in the same situation---

Col's work seems to solve this problem at least to my satisfaction ( and i am a fussy b*gger on the QT)

we have TWO problems whe viewed as a whole

some folks have

useless DD syndrome--

others have

uber DD syndrome--


what solves one will just make the other worse---

what the heck am i going on about lol--- i 'm going for a bit of a lie down--

[CB..]

Originally Posted by HEMISENT

Guys, regarding the idea that some people have uber DD's and never experience the opposite and other people have totally stupid DD behavior
and rarely run up against truly superior/elite DD opposition.
For just a moment consider this. There were four versions of the game introduced EMEA dvd, EMEA download, US dvd, US download. (also patches for each of those versions)I live in the US but I received an EMEA dvd disc in my pre-ordered shipment. The guy 60 miles away received a US dvd-why? Who is to say that perhaps just perhaps a minor change was made to the game either intentionally or in error which caused the game to play differently from one version to another, or maybe just one small aspect of the game to play out differently.
In all the back and forth testing going on here one person edits a file and the game reacts but another person edits that exact same file and experiences something totally opposite. All of you are comparing files and ideas and brainstorming until your hair starts smoking but no one has yet to ask "which version of the game do you have?".
Anyway, being the cynical, devious type that I am this is just the way I think. Absolutely no intention of pointing fingers here just another "what if" scenario. The devs knew what kind of hardcore simmers & realism fanatics some of us are, they knew exactly what kind of intended audience they were playing to. Is this another Easter Egg that being opened 9 mos later?
As my dad would say Food for Thought.

i agree i reckon the Devs were having a little bit of a laugh (as a small revenge for getting them to re write the campaign engine for us)

your right be interesting to check the game types every ones using to see what's what just in case

i have the european release DVD-- came with useless DD's as stock

[caspofungin]

sorry, been away from the thread for a few days -- work stuff

anyway, i feel that further extensive testing of sensitivity in sim.cfg is probably a waste of time. Why? I've run many, many tests w/ various values in both a set-up test mission and in campaign -- and noticed no significant difference in detection ranges w/ any sensor -- asdic or hydrophones.

detection time has an effect -- reducing it to 0 increases the range you're detected at -- but not beyond a certain maximum. decreasing ambient noise increases the range you're heard at -- but not beyond a certain maximum. decreasing wave effect also increases the range you're heard at -- but not beyond a certain maximum.

what determines that maximum range? i don't know. i've played w/ the ai_sensors setting, like cb, setting them up as high as 40000m, with no appreciable difference.

is there another file or setting somewhere that trumps or has a significant effect on the values in sim.cfg or ai_sensors? most likely. finding it is the issue.

i agree w/ cb's comment that any pinp[oint drop by escorts is down to bad luck on my side -- missing the point at which to turn for various reasons, or not moving quickly enough once i'm in the asdic dead zone (that i've implemented by changing beam geometry rather than the min range -- gives a larger dead-zone the deeper you are).

my personal feeling is that dumb dd's has as much to do w/ poor sensor implementation as anything else. it would be interesting to hear what rangs people are getting picked up on hydrophones at or pinged by asdic. no matter what i do, the max i can get pinged at is about 1400-1800m -- much less than historical figures. hydrophone effect -- no more than 5000m, can't remember exact figure. refer to my earlier post for historical comparisons.

anyway, i think once we get greater range for escort sensor detection, the escorts would present more of a challenge w/out the playkilling uberness that we get by removing sin.cfg. any comments?

[caspofungin]

also, wrt to the prev posts about escorts having "composite sensors" since they only have 1 asdic node -- they also have nodes (c and d) for radio direction finding and radar warning receivers -- could we place a second asdic into those nodes? similar to placing searchlights into the aircraft weapon nodes to represent leigh lights?

also, giving dc's the "noisemaker effect" of decoys -- mentioned previously, suggest greater amplitude but shorter duration -- but does anyone have an idea how to actually go about doing that?

[Redwine]

I am not sure but may be Marhkimov was right, i remove all back-up files from the file folder, and now changes i do works.

With little changes in the beam angles i can now manage those Buckley and Evarts from Ubber to stupid.

I am disconcerted

Changes i made :

Active

Beam wide 30* > 15*L > 15*R
Beam vertical 90* to 100*
MinRange 300

Pasive

Beam wide 240* > 120*L > 120*R
Beam vertical 90* to 110*
Min Range 300

[Hydrophone]
Detection time=1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=15 ;[kt]
Noise factor=1.0 ;[>=0]

[Sonar]
Detection time=20 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Waves factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=20 ;[kt]
Enemy surface factor=200 ;[m2]
Lose time=30 ;[s]

Now they works as early DDs



I was using very more reduced values before as :

a narrow wide active angle of only 3*
and min range of 500m
Sensivity 0.01
Lost time = 1
Detection time = 60


and no way, they still Ubber DDs.

Now, after remove the renamed back-up files, a obtain a complete change in behavior ............ i cant believe.

Please do not forget this, remove back-up files from files folders.

[CB..]

Originally Posted by caspofungin

anyway, i think once we get greater range for escort sensor detection, the escorts would present more of a challenge w/out the playkilling uberness that we get by removing sin.cfg. any comments?

welcome back Caspofugin

what i'm doing is only adding some of entrys to the sim.cfg and leaving others out-- to balance the extreme uber ness that comes from having no hydrophone netrys in the cfg

it seems to be working well or at least better and more reliably than anything else i've tried--luckily it allso seems to give good gameplay at the same time--not being overly predictable etc