RFB, Accurate Manual Targeting and Realism

[Blood_splat]

I remember reading Clear the Bridge and sometimes they just had to make an educated guess on what type of ship they sunk. They didn't just see a ship and instantly ID it.

[tater]

CapnScurvy, you have bent my path a bit. I still want exactly what I said before, that the heights are just as inaccurate as the ONI stuff our skippers had. What I realize now is that we need to make damn sure the SH4 models are accurate in height, or we need to scale any inaccuracies in ONI to the SH4 model.

Ie: Pretend SH4 model of Ise might be 103' high, but the RL Ise was 130 (made up number), and ONI said 123 (it does). So if we use straight ONI, we're 7' short of RL, but 20' taller than the SH4 model, lol. Those were made up numbers, but you get the idea. If the SH4 model was 103' in this case, the SH4 manual should use 97.5' (same % off).

<S>

tater

[CapnScurvy]

I understand what your saying tater, and that makes sense to me. You use the ONI as a guide to mimic the percentage of inaccuracies in it's measurements with how the game sees its measurements and in-turn create the same percentage's for the ultimate outcome for correct (or incorrect) range. That's a good way of looking at the problem of just throwing real life numbers in and thinking they will be close in game.

I used the Bogue CV for the example earlier because for one, the height measurement for the deck had to come from some sort of document (I don't know what LukeFF used but for the American side to not know the correct height of the deck of their own carrier is surprising).

And two, if that really is the correct height for the carrier deck why doesn't the game produce an accurate manually found range to it, at a reasonable distance?
1700 meters is not too far from the point the last prep for firing would take place. At this point in the attack the last thing you want is to be off as much as 200 meters let alone 800. Unless inaccuracy is what you hope to achieve.

My point has been that to deliberately throw off numbers for the sake of creating a more real life simulation is (in my opinion) wrong. Do it through other means like creating the atmosphere of doing extra tasks. Doing manual plotting of ship positions in prep for attacks could be one. But to permanently have the numbers skewed so you would never correctly hit a target at a reasonable range is again (in my opinion) wrong.

[vanjast]

Yeah I was plastered...
sorry about the name calling.. frustration...

and it's still the same thing... If the scope is not scaled correctly the firing solutions will not be accurate in manual targeting..

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by jazzabilly

Personally, I'm unloading RFB because I don't buy the realism claim. I personally don't believe that many merchantmen took 5 hits (and detonations) from torpedoes and remain afloat.

I personally know several veterans of the merchant marine, and next Remembrance Day (if they're still around) I will ask them how many ships they knew of could take 4 torpedoes and stay afloat. Not trying to be a pill, but it just doesn't add up.

I find that the contact fuses work roughly 10% of the time, the magnetics about 80%. On the last patrol I was forced to use 4 torpedoes on one (large old/split merch) and the large modern I tried to sink took 5 hits and detonations and stayed afloat.

I don't play games to be frustrated. I give up! Sorry, RFB cats. I really love most parts of it, but I find the damage model a bit of a stretch.

Yeah, the new patch does wonders. A couple of torps well placed does the trick. As far as the contact fuses.......that is a strange % you have. I sent out four the other night. 2 duds and 2 good hits. 50%. At the beginning of the war, the mark 14 contact was not dependable either but more dependable obviously later on. I have sunk the super tankers with two torps. Have you installed the new patch?

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Blood_splat

I remember reading Clear the Bridge and sometimes they just had to make an educated guess on what type of ship they sunk. They didn't just see a ship and instantly ID it.

That seals the deal for me. The ONI was not dead on accurate. Simple as that. One might want to ponder the doctrine to get within 1500 yards of the target before firing. One might think that getting within 1500 yards reduces inconsistency in ONI and human error. I can honestly say, the ONI presently in the game is just fine. Also, we are looking at pixels. What is a few pixels amongst friends or the target going down?

[AVGWarhawk]

On a personal note, giving me a dead nuts accurate ONI manual and dead on perfect solutions all the time will ruin just about any sense of accomplishment in sinking a vessel. It becomes mechanical and boring quickly just like auto target. Use the methods peddled by Rockin Robin, use the stadimeter. Us your imagination.

Leave me manual alone

[tater]

No comments on my merchant steaming unloaded in the image above?



What I will do deliberately is to alter the masts, mwahahaha.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by vanjast

Yeah I was plastered...
sorry about the name calling.. frustration...

and it's still the same thing... If the scope is not scaled correctly the firing solutions will not be accurate in manual targeting..

Thanks for the come back Vanjast, ........we'll kiss and make up later.

I too feel there's something amiss in the camera file in regard to scale for the periscopes. I've had a hunch for quite some time but since I know very little about the AngularAngle parameter and how it relates to actual display I've left it alone. I know RFB's AngularAngle figure is different from stock. In a good way or not I don't know.

I can tell you the cameras.dat Periscope Optical, Min & MaxZoom=parameters don't effert range finding one bit. It has no effect to calculating accurate range using the stadimeter. What it does do is bring in the view to a better, closer image and the marking of the stadimeter waterline is much easier. I realize that if you wanted to use the scope hash marks for making range (as the SH4 manual says) the scope image and the camera.dat parameters need to be in sync. I guess that's what your mod does?

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by tater

No comments on my merchant steaming unloaded in the image above?



What I will do deliberately is to alter the masts, mwahahaha.

OK, I think your fishing, I'll bite.

Looks like the boys are out of the water a bit. So your making my point that if I have an accurate height measurement that will give me dead on range finding, say for a loaded ship. The unloaded ship will be differently displayed (being higher out of the water) and create an inaccurate range finding from the original. That's because the game only offers one height measurement, no matter what the ship displacement may be.

So, isn't that another variable that gets thrown into the mix pointing out there's no certainty involved with dead on measurement figures?

Along with:

1. The Stadimeter pixel difference discussed a couple of posts back.

2. The fact that the ships are heaving and thrashing about making a good stadimeter range finding difficult.

3. The Speed and AoB figuring.

4. The lack of a Navigation Map that shows targets course and positions(you realism purists do play with the "No Map Contacts Updates" option set on don't you?).

5. The dud torpedoes, and an escort that's breathing down your neck.

6. At night, when you can hardly make out the ship 1000 yards ahead; or fog.

7. You asked earlier

BTW, how do you find the range on the rear Kasagisan?

That too is a problem (you don't) if you can't get a lock on the target when another is in the way. Neither can you bend the torpedoes under the first one to get to the second.

8. That brings up another variable that's thrown in. When a merchant ship is coming at you at say a 20 or 30 AoB which mast do you use. The front or the back? Each one will give you a different range reading.

Probably a few more variables that don't make accurate measurements a done deal. Either the fish broke the hook, our I'm landed. Your move tater head :p

[tater]

I was just thinking that if you use the rec manual, instead of dragging your own mast height for unloaded version, you'd have a grossly wrong range.

As for map contacts... that's tough. From a realism standpoint my crew should be doing the plotting based upon MY measurements (even if they are wrong). OTOH, the map contacts are 100% accurate. The only choice is unfortunately to plot yourself, even though this is too much of a workload, frankly. It's unrealistic either way.

I'm thinking of a mod that might well add laden and unladen ships in addition to mast and other variations I'm already working on (based on variants noted in ONI, plus some real examples). Unfortunately, their is almost zero control over the rec manual—and the rec manual is terribly thought out, IMO, it's not at all the way it should be arranged, I should never have to see a Liberty Ship, etc in the jap ship rec manual.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

I used the Bogue CV for the example earlier because for one, the height measurement for the deck had to come from some sort of document (I don't know what LukeFF used but for the American side to not know the correct height of the deck of their own carrier is surprising).

[tater]

Looking at the in-game pictures, the game version sits VERY much deeper in the water.

[msalama]

It's unrealistic either way.

Hmmm... is there a way to make visual contact map updates disappear and still retain radar / sonar contacts? I would _think_ that'd be more realistic... :hmm:

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by tater

Looking at the in-game pictures, the game version sits VERY much deeper in the water.

I think so. I just ran a test, and the Bogue comes out with a margin of error of about +445 yards (i.e., the range is shown as being that much greater than the true range). Given that this ship would only ever be targeted by the Axis, I think that is fine, since I doubt they would have had more accurate targeting type data available to them for a ship such as this.