The Japanese Win Again

CptGlub · 04-30-17, 06:00 PM

Some pointless grousing. I know the game is years past being maintained and that complaining serves no purprose. But here it is anyway:

I've been depth charged a number of times. I'm finding it incredibly hard to believe that on a pitch black night a pair of destroyers can peel off a daisy chain that was roaring along at 34kts and somehow come and plop their butts down almost directly on top of me. I understand that there is a trail for them to follow to get started on my location but that only gives them the direction not the distance. For them to charge over and consistently stop and fish around within 700 yds of my position is unrealistic. Especially since my distance from impact could be anything from 500 to 8200 yards away. Thats 5 football fields or FOUR NAUTICAL MILES they have to choose from. Yet, somehow they consistently start their search just a stone's throw away every time.

Doesn't matter if I give them my short profile. Doesn't matter if I don't turn a screw after firing. They magically converge directly overhead and commence their unending loops until they sniff me out. Once they've painted me, it's all over. I can dance around down there for hours but they aren't going to give up with their never ending supply of depth charges until they've come up with a lucky shot.

Here's the clincher. The other day, all but one escort gave up. When the remaining escort was turned away from me, I hit the gas and kept trying to creep away from him. I was ultra conservative with short bursts and made sure to shut down engines way before i exited his blind spot. As I slowly started trying to vacate the area, I simply dragged him with me as his searching patterns were consistently drawn to me like a magnet.

Out in the open sea with nothing, absolutely nothing as reference points, and literally 360 degrees to choose from, the fact that they zero in on me without a sonar lock is ridiculous and quite honestly ruins the sim.

In clear the bridge, o'kane described being ON THE SURFACE in the middle of a japanese convoy. Now I'm not asking for that kind of playablility but it sure points out the difference between what was possible in RL and what is plainly impossible in the sim. Christ, my SCOPE gets spotted from a couple miles away. How am I supposed to make a surface run?

It's just incredibly frustrating. The sim has such potential and such fantastic moments and features that I keep coming back but every time the bugs and the inevitable death by depthcharge send me away crying in my beer again.

I'm not really looking for advice. I've read it all and tried it all. Just howling at the moon which is my nature.

Here endeth the rant.

I'll set it aside again and wait for the next obsessive surge that pulls me back in.

propbeanie · 04-30-17, 08:03 PM

What mod, if any, are you using? Those make a ~huge~ difference in the "intelligence" of the "Artificial"...

CptGlub · 05-01-17, 04:20 AM

TMO 2.5 (or whatever the last TMO is)

It can't be helped. When faced with the problem of convoy defense, the programmers had a choice of simulating an actual search (time consuming) or simply have the escorts advance to a random location very near the only coordinate position that is KNOWN by the program--the sub's location. They took the easy way out.

When I use my sub sonar, if I'm off by even a couple degrees, my ping goes unreflected even on very close targets. That's a pretty narrow beam of precision. Now imagine an escort comes from hundreds or thousands of yards away after the chaos of a torpedo impact. He's got to find the fading torp trail, follow it out to their best guess on distance and then they've got to solve the problem of which of 360 degrees to point their sonar in AND they have to be right within two degrees or they get nothing. Add to that, that there is also 60-80 degrees of DOWN angle degrees to cope with.

Assuming 60 degrees of down angle means there are 21600 possibilities for the escort to choose (less actually because they have a blind spot). With a 2 degree precision required for echo, the probability now becomes 1 in roughly 10800 possibilities for a good ping. On an open ocean with no permanent landmarks to guide them and a vapor trail that is fading by the second, you wonder why they even try. And yet...it usally takes them only 10-12 pings to paint the exact location of a sub that never surfaced, showed its scope BEFORE the attack for maybe a total of 20 seconds, is below a thermal, not turning a screw, is engaged in running silently and exceeding test depth.

I am assuming full degrees for echo location. Maybe they get half degrees, maybe more. This would make the probabilities astronomical.

Yes, they will make many and sweeping searches but 1 divided by 10800 is .0000925, how many random pings must go out to turn that number into the discovery of a completely silent, non-moving sub that is giving you their narrowest, head-on silhouette?

Once painted, you're in trouble and that is as it should be. I don't complain that when discovered, I'm usually sunk. I complain that finding me in the first place should be way more difficult for them than it is.

CptGlub · 05-01-17, 04:32 AM

Sorry to beat the dead horse but in Clear The Bridge, O'Kane makes surface runs in the presence of escorts, picks his egress, then tosses off a brief sentence about how the escort never even saw him or dropped a couple charges way over "there" to make it look like they were searching. He's in the galley sipping a cup of coffee shortly after the engagement, thumbing through the ID manual.

In the SH4 world, daring to expose your scope invites a two-hour teeth-rattling depth-charge sabre-dance.

Something between those two extremes is called for.

My apologies for the rants. There should be no crying in sub sim.

Hardigen · 05-01-17, 09:59 AM

I agree entirely ,CptGlub, I,m also using TMO 2.5 and I,ve gone through exactly what ,s happened t you . I used to play it with 100% realism but it,s SO hard to get near a convoy, and the escorts just seem to zero in on you . Also the the search patterns follow you even when you,re running silent and under the thermal layer . BUT the TMO manual does warn you it,s not as easy as the stock game ,its just so bloody frustrating when you,ve got in a good position only t go deep . I,ve one consolation though ! I was forced to the surface on one op and managed to sink the b......d with the deck gun before he sunk me . Keep at it and have another beer , I think I,ll have one too ! we,re all in the same boat , Cheers H

CaptBones · 05-01-17, 10:44 AM

IIRC, there is a "mini-Mod" included in TMO 2.5 that dumbs-down the AI Escorts.

You can also tweak the Data/CFG/Sim.cfg file to put limitations, "mild" to "severe", on the AI escorts' Visual, Hydrophone, Radar, and Sonar capabilities. Pay particular attention to thermal layer attenuation. I experimented with various settings until it seemed to result in a more "fair" exchange between my tactics and their capabilities.

One thing that gets my attention every time...is time. It seems that if you use any TC while being hunted by escorts, they will unerringly find you and kill you. I suspect that you simply can't effectively/timely react to their tactics and sensors while in TC, but their skills are perfectly functional at the same time...time and time again.

So, I never use TC after attacking a convoy or any formation with escorts; makes for a long drawn-out afternoon/evening of Subsimming, but I general live to fight again another day. Yes, I've been depth charged to exhaustion or fatally damaged a couple of times. I've also spent an hour or two, sometimes three, being depth charged; but have managed to finally, successfully, creep away and leave a group of as many as 4 or more escorts behind, relentlessly depth-charging a circle of empty ocean behind me. Go deep and leave 'em astern.

04-30-17, 06:00 PM	#1
CptGlub Mate Join Date: Oct 2011 Posts: 59 Downloads: 76 Uploads: 0	The Japanese Win Again Some pointless grousing. I know the game is years past being maintained and that complaining serves no purprose. But here it is anyway: I've been depth charged a number of times. I'm finding it incredibly hard to believe that on a pitch black night a pair of destroyers can peel off a daisy chain that was roaring along at 34kts and somehow come and plop their butts down almost directly on top of me. I understand that there is a trail for them to follow to get started on my location but that only gives them the direction not the distance. For them to charge over and consistently stop and fish around within 700 yds of my position is unrealistic. Especially since my distance from impact could be anything from 500 to 8200 yards away. Thats 5 football fields or FOUR NAUTICAL MILES they have to choose from. Yet, somehow they consistently start their search just a stone's throw away every time. Doesn't matter if I give them my short profile. Doesn't matter if I don't turn a screw after firing. They magically converge directly overhead and commence their unending loops until they sniff me out. Once they've painted me, it's all over. I can dance around down there for hours but they aren't going to give up with their never ending supply of depth charges until they've come up with a lucky shot. Here's the clincher. The other day, all but one escort gave up. When the remaining escort was turned away from me, I hit the gas and kept trying to creep away from him. I was ultra conservative with short bursts and made sure to shut down engines way before i exited his blind spot. As I slowly started trying to vacate the area, I simply dragged him with me as his searching patterns were consistently drawn to me like a magnet. Out in the open sea with nothing, absolutely nothing as reference points, and literally 360 degrees to choose from, the fact that they zero in on me without a sonar lock is ridiculous and quite honestly ruins the sim. In clear the bridge, o'kane described being ON THE SURFACE in the middle of a japanese convoy. Now I'm not asking for that kind of playablility but it sure points out the difference between what was possible in RL and what is plainly impossible in the sim. Christ, my SCOPE gets spotted from a couple miles away. How am I supposed to make a surface run? It's just incredibly frustrating. The sim has such potential and such fantastic moments and features that I keep coming back but every time the bugs and the inevitable death by depthcharge send me away crying in my beer again. I'm not really looking for advice. I've read it all and tried it all. Just howling at the moon which is my nature. Here endeth the rant. I'll set it aside again and wait for the next obsessive surge that pulls me back in.

04-30-17, 08:03 PM	#2
propbeanie CTD - it's not just a job Join Date: May 2016 Location: One hour from Music City USA! Posts: 10,100 Downloads: 451 Uploads: 2	What mod, if any, are you using? Those make a ~huge~ difference in the "intelligence" of the "Artificial"... __________________ "...and bollocks to the naysayers" - Jimbuna

05-01-17, 04:20 AM	#3
CptGlub Mate Join Date: Oct 2011 Posts: 59 Downloads: 76 Uploads: 0	TMO 2.5 (or whatever the last TMO is) It can't be helped. When faced with the problem of convoy defense, the programmers had a choice of simulating an actual search (time consuming) or simply have the escorts advance to a random location very near the only coordinate position that is KNOWN by the program--the sub's location. They took the easy way out. When I use my sub sonar, if I'm off by even a couple degrees, my ping goes unreflected even on very close targets. That's a pretty narrow beam of precision. Now imagine an escort comes from hundreds or thousands of yards away after the chaos of a torpedo impact. He's got to find the fading torp trail, follow it out to their best guess on distance and then they've got to solve the problem of which of 360 degrees to point their sonar in AND they have to be right within two degrees or they get nothing. Add to that, that there is also 60-80 degrees of DOWN angle degrees to cope with. Assuming 60 degrees of down angle means there are 21600 possibilities for the escort to choose (less actually because they have a blind spot). With a 2 degree precision required for echo, the probability now becomes 1 in roughly 10800 possibilities for a good ping. On an open ocean with no permanent landmarks to guide them and a vapor trail that is fading by the second, you wonder why they even try. And yet...it usally takes them only 10-12 pings to paint the exact location of a sub that never surfaced, showed its scope BEFORE the attack for maybe a total of 20 seconds, is below a thermal, not turning a screw, is engaged in running silently and exceeding test depth. I am assuming full degrees for echo location. Maybe they get half degrees, maybe more. This would make the probabilities astronomical. Yes, they will make many and sweeping searches but 1 divided by 10800 is .0000925, how many random pings must go out to turn that number into the discovery of a completely silent, non-moving sub that is giving you their narrowest, head-on silhouette? Once painted, you're in trouble and that is as it should be. I don't complain that when discovered, I'm usually sunk. I complain that finding me in the first place should be way more difficult for them than it is.

05-01-17, 04:32 AM	#4
CptGlub Mate Join Date: Oct 2011 Posts: 59 Downloads: 76 Uploads: 0	Sorry to beat the dead horse but in Clear The Bridge, O'Kane makes surface runs in the presence of escorts, picks his egress, then tosses off a brief sentence about how the escort never even saw him or dropped a couple charges way over "there" to make it look like they were searching. He's in the galley sipping a cup of coffee shortly after the engagement, thumbing through the ID manual. In the SH4 world, daring to expose your scope invites a two-hour teeth-rattling depth-charge sabre-dance. Something between those two extremes is called for. My apologies for the rants. There should be no crying in sub sim.

05-01-17, 09:59 AM	#5
Hardigen Sparky Join Date: May 2012 Location: Lancashire ,England Posts: 158 Downloads: 165 Uploads: 0	I agree entirely ,CptGlub, I,m also using TMO 2.5 and I,ve gone through exactly what ,s happened t you . I used to play it with 100% realism but it,s SO hard to get near a convoy, and the escorts just seem to zero in on you . Also the the search patterns follow you even when you,re running silent and under the thermal layer . BUT the TMO manual does warn you it,s not as easy as the stock game ,its just so bloody frustrating when you,ve got in a good position only t go deep . I,ve one consolation though ! I was forced to the surface on one op and managed to sink the b......d with the deck gun before he sunk me . Keep at it and have another beer , I think I,ll have one too ! we,re all in the same boat , Cheers H

05-01-17, 10:44 AM	#6
CaptBones The Old Man Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Rockton, IL Posts: 281 Downloads: 208 Uploads: 0	IIRC, there is a "mini-Mod" included in TMO 2.5 that dumbs-down the AI Escorts. You can also tweak the Data/CFG/Sim.cfg file to put limitations, "mild" to "severe", on the AI escorts' Visual, Hydrophone, Radar, and Sonar capabilities. Pay particular attention to thermal layer attenuation. I experimented with various settings until it seemed to result in a more "fair" exchange between my tactics and their capabilities. One thing that gets my attention every time...is time. It seems that if you use any TC while being hunted by escorts, they will unerringly find you and kill you. I suspect that you simply can't effectively/timely react to their tactics and sensors while in TC, but their skills are perfectly functional at the same time...time and time again. So, I never use TC after attacking a convoy or any formation with escorts; makes for a long drawn-out afternoon/evening of Subsimming, but I general live to fight again another day. Yes, I've been depth charged to exhaustion or fatally damaged a couple of times. I've also spent an hour or two, sometimes three, being depth charged; but have managed to finally, successfully, creep away and leave a group of as many as 4 or more escorts behind, relentlessly depth-charging a circle of empty ocean behind me. Go deep and leave 'em astern.