Halp: Standard missions advice

[Relmu]

I'm at a bit of a loss. I had always assumed that submarine warfare was a long, drawn out and arduous affair where one takes the time to line up your opponents yet apparently I seem to be getting caught within the first ten/fifteen minutes not a problem.

At the moment I am piloting an Akula II in a dynamic mission. So far as I remember I am supposed to be intercepting a group of frigates that supposedly coming from the south (yet they're coming from the north apparently). My primary objective however involves sinking a Rebel SSN... quite how I identify these from loyalist SSN's I have no idea.

I have auto-crew turned on fully because frankly I don't have the time to switch through all the stations and complete all of the work myself before I get hit. It'd be fine if I knew that I was the target every time, so I could figure out the torpedo was heading for me but that's not always the case and...torpedoes apparently don't show up on the navigation screen (or my auto crew doesn't feel it's necessary). So I put a bit of faith in them.

Needless to say I ignore the ships to the north and proceed with hunting down my primary objective. I have no idea who that is and I'm also aware of other forces in the area. Which frequently show up as German, Chinese vessels. Assuming that they wouldn't put me in amongst a bunch of friendlies I turn towards the bearing that eventually identifies as an Oscar II.

I've worked out through trial and error that if I adjust my bearing every so often by a certain amount (i'm not sure how little is needed so I stick to a 10-20° turn once to the right and then twice to the left before centring again). Yet by the time I've completed my first turn and allowed the towed array to catch up (170m), I've usually been found and a torpedo is obviously sent charging towards me.

Depth seems to make no difference whatsoever to my being found or whether I can find others. It also makes no difference as to whether I put the radio mast up or use the streaming radio wire from 50m (at 3kts).

Whatever I do, I can't seem to find that sub before something else finds me. Obviously I'm doing something mightily wrong and could use some tips.

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I have no mods installed as I am running a 104 build through wine and I'm not certain as to whether I would be able to install them correctly (or heck even how to go about finding them).

I've read through the manual, to be fair most of it went straight over my head. I've looked through ''some'' of FPSChazly's tutorials to get the basic gist... sorry FPSChazly, but your Sinking the Nimitz game play was actually more of a help than your tutorials...

I also have a reference sheet, which...unfortunately doesn't have any akula information on it, but it provides cavitation depths for the Seawolf and the Los Angeles. Notably, the seawolf is silent up to 20kts, whatever that means.

My last attempt at using the sonar classification involves a Sonar Profiles pdf, which again by the time I've found what class I'm looking for... I've usually been sunk so that's of little help.

Basically. Halp.

[Tango589]

Oh dear, you do seem to be in a bit of a pickle! Can you tell us what the mission is called (if it is a campaign mission)? This may give us a few more clues as to what's going on.

Clever people will be along to render assistance shortly.

[Relmu]

South China Sea commanding Volk SSN-461 ... it has spent more time on the sea floor than it has targeting opponents...

[Pisces]

Did you really get hit? Or are you assuming the torpedo is headed for you? Unfortunately the dynamic missions aren't really realistic, rather arcadish if you ask me. You are dumped into the mission in a too small random area, and the friendlies and foes far too close so they detect each other almost from the start. Then it's over before you know it. The solution is to stay slow and quiet and hope for the best you stay alive, until you get some sensor data on the others. Especially once torpedoes start flying around the others should start to flinch and speed up to avoid.

If you can't get any lines on the sonar display then you may need to adjust the gamma and brightness settings for DW to make them stand out. You can add a gamma setting to the dangerouswaters.ini file. Otherwise adjust brightness settings in your graphicscard driver configuration application.

[Graphics]
. bla bla
.Gamma  "some decimal number between 0 an 1"

[Relmu]

"Ve h'ave been heet. I h'ave no contwol. Ve are sinking" ... is a rather familiar sound nowadays.

Oh I've got plenty of lines that's not a problem...now...knowing whether they're a sub or not without guessing from the frequency appears to be an entirely different matter.

The problem tends to be, sure I can track vessels quite easily, but torpedoes? Not a chance. So I can't tell whether they're heading for me or not. Generally the only thing I get is "torpedo in the water bearing xxx" then no further updates. I don't even know how the sonar guy does it because there's apparently no indication of noise in the sonar room from that bearing except *possibly* (not always) the ship/sub which fired it. Considering the cavitation from the torpedoes this always surprises me.

How does one tell friend from foe (submarine wise) without flicking on the truth layer?

[Pisces]

Some torpedoes can be launched as a rocket and dive in to the water somewhere. This then causes the torpedo in the water soundclip to be played. So there may not be a sub in those directions. This depends on the type of torpedo. Which you should be able to determine with the sound frequencies on the narrowband sonar display. But with a lot of mixed sound bearings the class-filter gives up and is of no use. I would pause the game and record each frequency on each bearing on paper and then find out yourself what goes where. Yeah, nobody said this game is easy. :p

If you get a sonar line on those reported bearings then look how the line is drifting to the side in the waterfall screen (broadband). If it moves left or right then it is not heading for your direction, but somewhere else beside you. Don't freak, just keep quiet and move out of the way gently. If however, the line stays rock solid on the same bearing then it is either moving away from you, or is on an intercept course to you. I would worry on the side of caution and assume you're it, and then waste no time in getting away. Loose the TA if you have to. In those short distances you have little or no time to react and are likely toast anyway.

Submarine friend or foe? You can't know for sure. Find out which class it is by analysing the sensor readings (Demon lines, narrowband frequencies, audible sound, ESM, visual ID) Take whatever distinctive info you can get. Classes for different countries usually are distinct enough to ferret them out. See what matches and fit the mission orders/descriptions/intelligence. But don't count the mission description or intel to be 100% accurate. There are often curve balls thrown in.

[Relmu]

No joy. -_-. I can be travelling at 3kts and dive immediately to 480m yet for some reason since at least one of them is actively pinging...kablam within approx 30 minutes.

I'm not even sure it's the frigates that are getting me ._.;