Hydrophone Use

[mido]

I was able to reproduce the situation where I could hear a ship with the hydrophone as long as it was out of sight. Way before it could be seen, the sound disappeared. BTW, I am using SH4 1.5 with OM+OMEGU.

[irish1958]

Thanks Capt.
The professional expertise of posters on this forum amazes me.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by mido

I was able to reproduce the situation where I could hear a ship with the hydrophone as long as it was out of sight. Way before it could be seen, the sound disappeared. BTW, I am using SH4 1.5 with OM+OMEGU.

Without knowing more details about the particular ship you ran into I can't say for certain what happened in your particular situation.

I can look into mission files from Lurker and see what's what. So I did. One of two single missions that he adds with his OMEGU_300 mod is called "RUM 430430 U515". It has the U-Boat 515 attacking an allied convoy on April 30, 1943. Taking a look at the convoy makeup and speed, I see a potential problem with some of the ships. Several are of the KSS or Kasagisan type (Small Old Split Superstructure). OM-OMEGU has the KSS class freighter "NKSs.sim" file listing the "Max_speed=11" knots. The following mission file has these ships cruising at 5 knots:




It's my opinion these ships will not be heard using the hydrophone manually. There are other ships in this convoy that can be heard because their "Max_speed=" parameter is set to only 10 knots.

As I said, I don't know all the particulars with your situation. I've only looked at this one mission, but it's the first mission I looked into.....However, this oversight in having ships travel at less than 50% of their maximum speed will cause not hearing the ship with manual hydrophone use.

[mido]

Capn, I am not trying to argue with you. I noticed the same thing you reported already. I am just adding my observation to yours.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by mido

Capn, I am not trying to argue with you. I noticed the same thing you reported already. I am just adding my observation to yours.

Believe me, I didn't think you were arguing with me at all!

You pointed out an example that needed to be looked into, and I did a little bit of investigating into OM_OMEGU, checking into its mission makeup. Turns out there are some real reasons why the hydrophone deafness occurs.

When folks report issues that are similar, it only gives a bit of credence to the issue at hand. My digging into the actual files only proved there are some reasons why things occur as they do. It may not have answered why a sound was heard at a far distance, yet unheard as the target came closer, but it does point to issues that are similar.

I mentioned in another post, that a ship could change its speed after hitting a waypoint designed into its mission/patrol makeup. Mido, this could account to what you so aptly described. Also, another possibility is the ship slowed down as it made a direction change at a waypoint. I don't know for sure, but it may be possible for a ship that's cruising at just its 50% of maximum, MAY slow down a knot when it makes a turn. If it does, the hydrophone sound may go silent while the ship travels at this reduced speed. I don't know for sure about this......it's just a thought.

Thanks Mido for your input!!