I don't understand the sensors

[John Pancoast]

Originally Posted by Grumpy Pete

I see the confusion. It's been a Long time since I worked on these sensor files so I opened them up again in S3D. I changed the ranges for the following sonars--147A, 144A, 128A, 123A, QGAA, QCIA and QCeA. The important designation is the "A" at the end of each sensor name. That means the file is for active sonar. While it does say "Hydrophone" in those files, it actually pertains to the active sonar ranges (99.78% Positive).

These ranges are then modified by SH3 weather, surface factor (your profile aspect to the hunting escort) etc. The most important factor is escort Crew Quality. Only elite escorts get the benefit of the full 2500 meter range. Decreasing crew experience levels drops that range quickly. If I remember correctly, a veteran crew will only use 80% of that range. Average 60% (and so on).

I've been using the mod and it seems to me to be working well. I get pinged a Lot more and if there are 2 or 3 escorts after me, it can take some work to elude them. I had 3 on me for a couple hours the other night and I couldn't get away even though I went 180 meters in March of 41. Finally 2 of them went away (after dropping all their dc's, naturally) and I was able to give the last one the slip by keeping in him in my baffles between 160 and 200 degrees and running at 2 knots.

In summation, I believe the mod is working. However, results vary wildly when considering all the modifiers. It's quite different from stock in my experience though the difference can be very subtle to determine.

If I'm wrong about how I modded the sonars, I'd sure be happy to be corrected so I can try to fix any errors.

Yes, I was wondering if that was the case; the file naming confusion. I recall years ago that was addressed (the mismatching of sonar/hydrophone labeling) but am to lazy to look it up again. I bet you're correct in thinking they're actually sonars you've changed.
But I also seem to recall that the escorts won't ping you without having a phone contact first (which is wrong, but anyway), so increasing the phone range could also have the affect of more pinging if so. Really nice work regardless Grumpy.
Another trick that can help making the escorts less dumb (and they need all the help they can get) is to not have the thermal layer effect used with Sh3 Commander.