Periscope detections are hosed

[SilentPrey]

I believe it's the line now in blue.

Originally Posted by HertogJan

I'm wondering where I can change the passive sonar settings in these values, I see where I can change the active sonar (red line) but not the passive.
Could someone please tell me which line is passive sonar?

[Visual]
Detection time=2 ;[s] ;was 0.5
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1)
Fog factor=1.25 ;[>=0]
Light factor=2.8 ;[>=0] ;was 2.0
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=350 ;[m2]
Enemy speed factor=15 ;[kt]

[Radar]
Detection time=1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1)
Waves factor=0.9 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=5.0 ;[m2]

[Hydrophone]
Detection time=10 ;[s] ;was 1
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1) ;was 0.04
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=0.55 ;[>=0] ;was 0.75
Speed factor=15 ;[kt] ;was 20
Noise factor=0.2 ;[>=0] ;was 0.5

[Sonar]
Detection time=15 ;[s] ;was 10
Sensitivity=0.005 ;(0..1) ;was 0.01
Waves factor=0.6 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=15 ;[kt]
Enemy surface factor=100 ;[m2]
Lose time=30 ;[s]

[HertogJan]

Ah, thats why I couldn't find it... Passive sonar is Hydrophone


Thanks for the info!

[bandit484]

In my honest opinion I think these newer values that Aanker has shared with us are much more acceptable than the stock settings. Now I can atleast contemplate taking on convoys in shallower waters now. Where before I would never have even considered patrolling in areas such as around Singapore, now I feel confident of having a fighting chance against escorts in shallower waters!

[neilbyrne]

Agreed; BZ to Aanchor!

[Ducimus]

I probably shouldn't respond to this because it deals with modding, (and my new SOP with modding is, My hands = off), but a couple off the cuff responses:

brief exposures of my periscope detected immediately and at very high rates of probability by merchant ships, day or night. Had one detect me last night at 4000 yards in heavy seas. This has been happening for about a week. They get to 4,000 yds and start to zigzag for no apparent reason.

I know some merchants have passive sonar. I thought about removing that in TMO, but was told that was historically correct so i left it in. Although the heavy seas confuses me. However, if your using RSRD, that probably altered something I did in ways that I did not intend, anticipate, or account for. Not a dig on the author of RSRD, it's just when you go overlaying mods on top of another large mod, the results are a caveat emptor situation. I take no responsibility beyond my own work.

I served on active duty in the USN for 31 years mostly in frigates and destroyers.

You know, there is absolutely no way that a former Air Force Construction Engineer with slightly less then 7 years TIS is going to have the knowledge of ANY former naval personnel regardless of specialty or TIS. Just sayin'. Hell, I have to constantly refer to a rank/grade chart when looking at Naval ranks because they never made any sense to me.

In the end, any game modification about naval warfare will probably best be done by people with experience in that area, and the technical expertise to do it. I had the latter, but not the former.

I wrote two longer posts about ASW for Ducimus about five years ago that contained some of this.

Five years ago is a long time ago for me. I honestly can't remember. Maybe I missed it. Maybe I was being pigheaded and just didn't pay attention. Maybe I just took what was said from an anonymous person on the internet with a grain of salt. I dunno.

I ran out of time, patience, and motivation; but I did my best. There's nothing else for it.

[neilbyrne]

Ducimus, TMO is a great mod which I've enjoyed for a long while. You did a wonderful job which I could in no way duplicate. I wouldn't know a line of C++ if it was floating in my breakfast cereal.

Thanks for all your work. Fair winds and following seas.

[Ducimus]

You don't need C++ knowledge unless you delve into the shader files. As programming goes, id say maybe having an idea of the basic principles of object oriented programing could help, but probably isn't required. Any mind that works mechanically, or simply having the will to do it, can mod this game with the tools available. (notepad, winmerge, S3D, Gimp, etc)

[Sniper297]

Yeah, I don't think anyone is pointing fingers at TMO specifically, I get psychic escorts with telescopic X-ray vision in the stock game. And there's nothing wrong with the Air Force, they're ALMOST as cool as the Navy.

My latest test I cruised on the surface right up to a couple battleships within 1000 yards at night without being seen, but these are part of the WIP career mod I've been working on for a year so I'll have to check if I changed all the enemy crew ratings to novice and poor while I was barking up the wrong voice tube.

"Sniper, you too and I'm retired so call me Neil...please."

Aye Aye, Sir!

[Sniper297]

Nope. Before looking into Aanker's idea I had set some of the tin cans to novice and poor, but the Kongo BB was set for the default Veteran crew. The difference is in the sim.cfg visual hack, at night I motored up to him within 1000 yards on the surface before whacking him with a couple of fish, in the daytime I get to about 4500 yards and he starts throwing everything in his shot lockers at me and I gotta pull the plug. While poking around in the mission editor I reset the poor and novice destroyers to competent and veteran, see how much of a rough time they give me with that.

[neilbyrne]

Did some more testing tonight w/ same scenario as above. Tactics the same as for Run #1 w/ same result, one merchie hit and the other sunk. We went to flank speed and dove to 500ft fwd of the sinking cargo ship. Dropped a false target can (FTC) decoy just as we approached the layer. The escorts got in some licks and we took some systems damage from DCs close aboard, but only suffered 1% hull damage. We managed to sneak away as the escorts appeared to be boiling seaweed astern around our FTC. I made the mistake of surfacing with the MINEKAZE 5nm distant forgetting that these guys had radar. She and a corvette started to close us immediately, but we evaded easily back below the layer before they could get close to marking atop our datum and they eventually rejoined the convoy.

We then ran around the surviving convoy positioning ahead at 13nm, went to RD at 11nm and PD at 6nm. The surviving merchants had been consolidated into a single column of three with the damaged ship in the lead all doing 4-5kts. The escorts were now more tightly arrayed around this reduced frontage patrolling vigorously. We tried to penetrate between the lead and port wing corvettes, but both detected us at about 1400yds. The screen was just too tight. As before we dropped FTCs as we neared the layer and they dropped about sixty depth charges, but mostly astern, again likely seduced by the FTCs.

SUBPAC has ordered us up into the East China Sea so I believe I'll follow orders and let these remnants proceed on without further attempts on their virtue. Five escorts around three ships is a mighty tight cordon, just a very tough nut to crack unless they decide to wander far off station which none did tonight. I guess we could try to do the penetrate below the layer and surface behind the screen tactic, but truthfully I've never liked it and my conversations with modern day submariners indicate that they don't abandon the above layer regime until forced to do so by escort detections because the layer works both ways. The escorts lose detection range, but the submarine does as well and her very meticulously developed passive tactical picture goes to pot, something not all that well modeled in SH4.

As stated above, these detection ranges and difficulty seem to be about right to me. Nothing has transpired in these multiple runs than doesn't seem fairly realistic.

Hats off once more to Ducimus; we're just tweaking around the edges of his fantastic mod. As well as another well done to Aanchor.

Spider, I know from nothing about the mission editor; haven't tried it. Likewise I haven't yet tested what Aanchor's suggestions have done to surfaced night approaches.

[Sniper297]

Yeah, my results are somewhat skewed by the fact that what I'm testing over and over is a career start mission I'm working on, fictional scenario where the player starts an Asiatic career in Manila under air attack with an invasion force coming into the harbor. The idea is to get to the narrows south of Corregidor soon enough to kill incoming battleships and heavy cruisers before the US surface ships (light cruisers and a few heavies) is completely wiped out. Trying to balance this so the US ships are outnumbered and outclassed enough to need lots of help from the player, but not to the point of hopelessness. I've changed types, speeds, numbers, crew rating and timing a zillion times over the past year trying to get difficult but not impossible.

Last night with a Sargo departure was about 1600, as I said the first BB opened fire on me at 4500 yards. After sinking him I surfaced and bent on some knots to stay ahead of the US cruisers, went to decks awash and got within 2000 yards of an enemy Takao before he opened fire, but he wasn't shooting at me, there was an Omaha light cruiser boiling up behind me at 30 knots. Once the two of them started trading punches a Maya 1500 yards behind the Takao, which wasn't in range of the Omaha yet, noticed me and started shooting.

A sub on the surface is a small target, even more so when flooded down decks awash, so some of these were situations where I'm running flooded down to 25 feet (max depth the diesels will still run) within 2000 yards of a couple of enemy heavies, but they're ignoring me and firing at US light and heavy cruisers that are also within range. I'm running at 15 knots with a US light cruiser nearby and as soon as he gets sunk the jig is up and the bad guys shift fire to me, which makes it hard to tell when they first actually SAW me. This one;



Was a novice crew, near sunset, with me running decks awash and no US ships nearby. The combination of the sim.cfg hack with the novice crew is obviously a bit too much, even in poor light and flooded down with just the conning tower showing he SHOULD be able to see me at 900 yards.

"We then ran around the surviving convoy positioning ahead..."

Ain't you never heard discretion is the better part of valor? Hee-hee, stir up a hornet's nest once it's a bad idea to come back for more! I get detected before attacking a convoy I go deep and evade, let them all get away and wait for the next convoy. He who chickens and runs away lives to chicken another day.

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

I probably shouldn't respond to this because it deals with modding, (and my new SOP with modding is, My hands = off), but a couple off the cuff responses:

I ran out of time, patience, and motivation; but I did my best. There's nothing else for it.

Damn, so you're not gonna make a mod to please everyone?

[Sniper297]

Ran another this morning, this one started about midnight (career start it's random). While tweaking this to try to balance between player choice of S-18, Porpoise, Salmon or Sargo I came to the conclusion that the S boat would arrive at his first engagement about 2 years after the sunken US fleet had rusted away. So I added three torpedo bombers to help the surface fleet, they usually get two or three small holes in the first BB (Kongo) to soften him up a little. Doesn't usually help much, even DIW he makes scrap iron out of any light or heavy US cruiser that comes within range.

But this time surprise surprise, them three TBDs actually SANK the Kongo with them itty bitty mark 13s. Okay, so there's a group of 1 Takao and two light cruisers coming in behind, go to decks awash and see how close I can get to them.



2000 yards at 12 knots, they can't see all that spray?



Inside 1000 yards, them lubbers are all asleep. Fire one, fire two!



At least the light cruisers woke up and started hammering away when the Takao blew up, but I still think the lookouts should have seen SOMETHING at 2000 yards even in the dark. I can see sneaking up to 1000 yards from a merchant ship in the dark, but not a man-O-war.

[Visual]
Detection time=0.8 ;[s] min detection time.
Sensitivity=0.07 ;(0..1) min detection threshold double detection time.
Fog factor=1.2 ;[>=0]
Light factor=2.6 ;[>=0]
Waves factor=2.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=150 ;[m2]
Enemy speed factor=18 ;[kt]
Thermal Layer Signal Attenuation=1.0

[Radar]
Detection time=1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1)
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=5.0 ;[m2]
Thermal Layer Signal Attenuation=1.0

[Hydrophone]
Detection time=5 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.07 ;(0..1)
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=0.7 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=15 ;[kt]
Noise factor=0.7 ;[>=0]
Thermal Layer Signal Attenuation=2 ;[>0], 1 means no signal reduction, 3 equals signal reduction to 33%

[Sonar]
Detection time=10 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.009 ;(0..1)
Waves factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=15 ;[kt]
Enemy surface factor=100 ;[m2]
Lose time=30 ;[s]
Thermal Layer Signal Attenuation=2 ;[>0], 1 means no signal reduction, 5 equals signal reduction to 20%

That's what I'm running now, maybe the light factor needs to be adjusted downward?

[Leon West]

Forgive me, but I think I'm just really bucking for that "Stupidest Question of the Year" award. It's so shiny!

Erm, anyways, the above code looks like a lot of work has gone into it, and I would really like to give it a try with my game, but sadly, I don't know which file to edit. Can someone please point me in the right direction for this one?

Thanks in advance.

[aanker]

Originally Posted by Leon West

Forgive me, but I think I'm just really bucking for that "Stupidest Question of the Year" award. It's so shiny!

Erm, anyways, the above code looks like a lot of work has gone into it, and I would really like to give it a try with my game, but sadly, I don't know which file to edit. Can someone please point me in the right direction for this one?

Thanks in advance.

It is easy - there are no silly questions.

The file is sim.cfg
It can be opened with Notepad a plain text editor - NOT Word or any formatted text program.

Values I posted here make a night surface attack possible under the right 'use your common sense' conditions/situations.

Here is the post:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...6&postcount=20

sim.cfg is in:
Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific\Data\Cfg\sim.cfg

Be sure you back your file up so you don't lose it.

Happy Hunting!