[WIP] U-Boat Killer AI Mod

[Nisgeis]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll do some testing with groups that have only a single asset and multiple destroyers. That seems to be the common theme here.

As for sitting on the bottom still in shallow water, I'm not so sure that's a good idea, as they start from your last known position to try to re-acquire you, so if they have depth charged you and you sit in the same spot, they will find you again fairly easily. I have an idea about that though. I think your best chance against a single asset convoy is to start planning your escape before you attack and be on your way out before it hits home. I'm not sure what the 'correct' procedure they'd follow is, but I should think they'd be pretty annoyed if you sank the only thing they were protecting .

Did you both attack at night, submerged?

Thanks again for the feedback, I want it to be a challenge, but not certain death, so I'll have a look at it. You did both survive for a few hours though, which is good . Not sure how they managed to multiply - they must have called for re-inforcements. Keeping you down until you run out of air sounds fairly realistic, but maybe need to only happen when you run into a really well trainedd veteran group?

[sirbum69]

i believe mine was during the day, When i started my attack...But i was submerged....I was also i believe about 1700M out when i sent in the torps...I could have been too close to the convoy and that is why they picked me up...Or at least where the torps came from...

True shallow water you would have less chance of surviving the DC, but i just figured that if i wasnt moving at all...No sounds...and there DC were going off around me, that sooner or later they would assume i was dead and move on....Or i could even see staying around for me to run out of air..

But they continued to DC me...So i would move slow ahead (1KNT) and bam they would home in on my new location and start again. I figured being under silent running and 1 knt they wouldnt pick me up..

I wish i would have been in alot deeper water to have gone deeper and see if that worked but 80M was the deepest, i was resting on the sea floor as it was.

Ive started a new campaign now cause of the new UI that just came out from dark....So gonna see how the DD react to me now...Going to take shots a little farther out, maybe 2500M and then do like you said, start moveing away from the area immediatly while torps are on there way.

Least then maybe i can stay out of there detection area a little better to sail off into the sunset

[ddrgn]

Are you guys dropping decoys? Drop decoys go full speed 30 seconds, than drop to 1 knot while diving. Go as deep as you can and make L turns back and forth.

If any boat had 19 DD's on them for that long you should have been dead IMO. You should take damage on almost every pass, the more accurate the more deadly of course. Fourth or fifth good pass and you should go down.

You didn't shake them hard enough ;}

This mod does not change the stock AI visual range or stock AI time to visual contact (I don't think its changed here, someone can confirm that). Stock is 20 km. Even if you pop your scope up a second they will re-acquire you instantly.

Also, Nisgeis has increased the time in takes for them to lose you (I think, I could be wrong, but sounded like it from our quick chat the other day). I'm not sure that is a good idea. The AI sensors in stock are pristine they will pick you up fast, visual or sound contacts. I decreased the DD's AI sensors to balance out the wicked damage they do in some of my work.

For a good balance here I think you need to increase damage maybe 20% and weaken the AI sensors some, that will work will with the new scripting. These mods are the most interesting stuff on the go either way ;']

[Lopo]

Hello,

I'm using your amazing mod and have had a similar experience as OS1 Mac. Waiting for the new patch I play only the single missions and, one time, during the night attack of PQ17 I sunk and damaged three ships when the DD's screen was far away. Immediately after the first shot the sonar tell me that three DD were approaching at high speed. I launched two others eels quickly, dived to 150m at 4 knots when the DD were still away from me to be detected and moved away at 1 knots. Like OS1 Mac I had quickly a pack of DD (9 in my case) depth charging me without accuracy in circles one at time until the end of the mission, in other words during the night and the all day next. The furious energy expended by the British seems in my gamer opinion a bit unrealistic, isn't it?
I played several times this mission and only one time I succeed to clear of the zone without been detected but I could not surface to put off the ship damaged and immobilized with my deck gun. The Sea Dog's were still in surface waiting me!
BTW, I appreciate your work and I hope your mod will be compatible with the new patch.
Thanks a lot!

Take care

[kylania]

Originally Posted by ddrgn

Are you guys dropping decoys? Drop decoys go full speed 30 seconds, than drop to 1 knot while diving. Go as deep as you can and make L turns back and forth.

How do you even get decoys? I know they just "happen" due to a bug, but there weren't decoys in 1939 right? I'm in the middle of Happy Times and haven't seen any purchasable or refillable, in fact no mention of them at all beyond the keymap.

[ddrgn]

Originally Posted by kylania

How do you even get decoys? I know they just "happen" due to a bug, but there weren't decoys in 1939 right? I'm in the middle of Happy Times and haven't seen any purchasable or refillable, in fact no mention of them at all beyond the keymap.

Regular single or mp player missions with 1941-43 Type VIIC, deploy with no problem.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by ddrgn

Are you guys dropping decoys? Drop decoys go full speed 30 seconds, than drop to 1 knot while diving. Go as deep as you can and make L turns back and forth.

If any boat had 19 DD's on them for that long you should have been dead IMO. You should take damage on almost every pass, the more accurate the more deadly of course. Fourth or fifth good pass and you should go down.

You didn't shake them hard enough ;}

This mod does not change the stock AI visual range or stock AI time to visual contact (I don't think its changed here, someone can confirm that). Stock is 20 km. Even if you pop your scope up a second they will re-acquire you instantly.

Also, Nisgeis has increased the time in takes for them to lose you (I think, I could be wrong, but sounded like it from our quick chat the other day). I'm not sure that is a good idea. The AI sensors in stock are pristine they will pick you up fast, visual or sound contacts. I decreased the DD's AI sensors to balance out the wicked damage they do in some of my work.

For a good balance here I think you need to increase damage maybe 20% and weaken the AI sensors some, that will work will with the new scripting. These mods are the most interesting stuff on the go either way ;']

I dont think its a good idea to change the escorts passive sonar range. In stock, it is already fairly limited. It is affected by your speed, the escort's speed, experience level, sea state and it disappears quickly at depth. At 150 meters, silent running, the escort has to be basically right on top of you to hear your boat. Nisgeis increased the lost contact time from 15 mins to 6 hours, but in my one encounter with 2 veteran escorts, I still managed to lose them fairly quickly.

I have only had one encounter so far with Nisgeis's escorts, but it feels about right to me. I only have a few suggestions:

1. look into tweaking the active sonar to go deeper and a bit bigger to make it easier for an escort to track you once it does detect you.

2. should we increase some more the damage from the DCs ? (not the damage radius). In Blair's book, you read many encounters where 5-10 accurate DCs would destroy a boat. In my case, 2 well placed DCs only caused temporary damage.

[ddrgn]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

I dont think its a good idea to change the escorts passive sonar range. In stock, it is already fairly limited. It is affected by your speed, the escort's speed, experience level, sea state and it disappears quickly at depth. At 150 meters, silent running, the escort has to be basically right on top of you to hear your boat. Nisgeis increased the lost contact time from 15 mins to 6 hours, but in my one encounter with 2 veteran escorts, I still managed to lose them fairly quickly.

I have only had one encounter so far with Nisgeis's escorts, but it feels about right to me. I only have a few suggestions:

1. look into tweaking the active sonar to go deeper and a bit bigger to make it easier for an escort to track you once it does detect you.

2. should we increase some more the damage from the DCs ? (not the damage radius). In Blair's book, you read many encounters where 5-10 accurate DCs would destroy a boat. In my case, 2 well placed DCs only caused temporary damage.

Sorry that doesn't make any sense to me;

######################### Lost Time ######################
# CRITICAL_LOST_TIME = 3600;
CRITICAL_LOST_TIME = 600;
}

If 600 units means 6 hours than each unit would equal .1 minutes? It has to be a unit per second so 3600 = 60 mins is what stock is set at, makes sense.

Critical loss time by this mod is 10 mins? no?

Stock sensors are way to precise, that's the problem here, they should lose him after 10 mins, if you do the right moves of course...

You need to tone the sensors down to get a nice balance with additional scripts and damage.

In 100% stock, the AI has np finding you... The biggest problem is you can get charged to hell and back and get no damage. The scripting like I have said before is fine, it doesn't need to be changed. except for when they get a contact (they should race full speed ahead, or 0.8 full speed). When you tone down the sensors (which are way to perfect in stock) and increase the damage from charges, it makes those accurate passes that much more deadly.

The devs left out a ****load of potential operations/strategies in the scripting. But after seeing how the stock AI reacts with the extra speed when racing to contact they are not so bad as it sits right now.

As for convoys reacting to torpedoes and explosions. In stock (no AI changed except for contact race speed) I have seen them react to explosions while at dead stop with no contact on me. The merchants race ahead full and start zigging, the DD;s start searching.

Some have said you fire a torp into a convoy and they don't react, I do believe what they are saying, but the problem isn't the scripting. Its the veterency levels the campaign ships are set at.They are placed in the editors as poor, novice and competent (for the new guys I suppose). In a regular single mission if you set a 60 ship convoy all to ELITE they will react properly, evade quickly and try to out run you.

We really need a better campaign that adds ELITE ships into the fold and you will see much better behavior with very minor script changing. The scripts do very little in regards, to damage and sensor capability. With stock scripting they investigate, spam charges, and run spirals with no problems.

When I say tone down the sensors, one sensor that is really bad is the AI's visual capability. In stock its set to 20k, in light wavy conditions with the sensors factors they can spot you from about 17km, that's too far for submarines to be seen. I change this to 7km. So in best conditions w/factors they will see me from about 6500m out. The other thing with the visual sensor that is really bad is the ability to see you quickly, it is set to 15 seconds and they spot your scope in about 5 seconds with factors. Way too quick. So in stock you could be 10 km from the convoy scopes up and in perfect conditions they will spot you within 5 seconds. So most people are probably trying to creep up on convoys, but they already know your there from 10 k away and have been zigging for 30 mins already, after seeing your scope. I tone this down so its about 45 seconds in good conditions and up to 80 seconds in bad. Gives me time to do some obs and solution, without perfect computer eyes seeing me from 17km away And only at a maximum range of say 6500m w/factors. So if your being chased by DD's in stock and now again pop up your scope, good luck losing their contact.

[PL_Andrev]

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

So, here's the first part of a WIP mod that aims to get the AI into the game.

My friend prepared a "uboat damages mod" which perfect cooperate with your Killer AI mod.
It can be used separately but was tested only with your mod (with very good results).
Topic here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=167972

Cheers,

[Bilge_Rat]

lost contact time is in the sim cfg file. It is listed in minutes. In the stock game it is 15 mins. After that time, the escort will stop looking for you. Most mods in SH4 had increased the time to 30 mins. Nisgeis increased it to 360 (i.e. 6 hours) as you can see in his sim cfg file. At first I thought it was excessive, but it actually works well in the game.

it should not be that easy to lose an escort, in the war, 2-3 escorts working together as a team and with all the time in the world, could generally keep track of a U-Boat and stay on top of him until he was forced to surface.

if you look at the stock passive sonar range of an escort, it is actually quite limited, if a sub is silent running.


-here they cant hear me at all on passive sonar or see my scope even though I am almost in the middle of the formation:




-this is running at 1 knot at periscope depth against veteran escorts, notice how small the passive sonar detection (yellow) cone is:







-and here, silent running at 77 meters, my boat is basically invisible to the escorts on passive sonar:

Hey, Nisgeis, my incident with the 19 destroyers was at night and like I said I was operating in perfect sub-prosecuting conditions: clear skies, no fog, and calm seas. It was in Dec. 1939 and I was in a Type VIIA, so I had no decoys. One thing that didn't help my escape was that I watched the torps impact the ships (couldn't resist after waiting for a week, game time, for the Arc Royal to appear). I dived after torpedo impact. Also, I was using steam torpedoes. So, I brought a lot of this pain on myself. And it seems like all the new warship contacts came from the direction of Plymouth. I was only 20 km's off the entrance to Plymouth harbor when I attacked. Thanks.

[sirbum69]

so if i wanted to tweak these settings just a bit, where would i look for them...Or i should say what would i open them with...

Will visual studio open the files needed?

Nisgeis, here's some more info for you about my attack off Plymouth. I saved the game just prior to firing the torpedoes, so that I could try again if I missed. When I first raised my periscope to view the task force the AOB of the carrier when it crossed my bow would've been 90 degrees to port. But it was only 2000 m away and only 20 degrees to starboard of my scope's 000. Its speed was about 9 kts. So, I had very little time to set up a firing solution (maybe 30 seconds).

I reloaded the save a few times because of misses. Each time I missed, an escort on the other side (carrier's starboard quarter - I was on the carrier's port beam) saw either my periscope or the wake of the torpedoes. I think I had my periscope raised not more than a minute. Normally, I wouldn't keep it up so long, but being my first look at the task force I was trying to work out the range, course, and speed of the carrier. It wasn't the best situation to be in. I didn't feel like waiting another week for it to leave port. Anyway, after each reload and when the torps missed the escort on the carrier's starboard quarter turned towards me at flank speed. When I finally hit the carrier none of the escorts had noticed me, though. I think they only noticed me when the torps went past the carrier.

I think the ability of the AI crew is very important in determining whether they are able to hunt a u-boat down. Maybe the escorts had high ASW abilities.

[ddrgn]

Originally Posted by sirbum69

so if i wanted to tweak these settings just a bit, where would i look for them...Or i should say what would i open them with...

Will visual studio open the files needed?

Trick is to open the the mods folder up and look at all the file the modder has changed that will help you find the settings you want to tweak specifically.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by sirbum69

so if i wanted to tweak these settings just a bit, where would i look for them...Or i should say what would i open them with...

Will visual studio open the files needed?

you can find some info on the sensors here, it depends what you want to tweak:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=163089

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=163089

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=163905

the settings Ducimus posted make the escorts too dangerous, but it gives you an idea of what the variables do.