Is it me or the game is a little bit too easy?

[Onkel Neal]

Keep playing, I've seen a lot of examples of subs and ships evading my weapons


And try increasing the difficulty level

[xXNightEagleXx]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Keep playing, I've seen a lot of examples of subs and ships evading my weapons


And try increasing the difficulty level

Already on hard, will try the other one.

[xXNightEagleXx]

I'll keep playing but by checking the config file i can see this:

[Difficulty Settings]
//Easy, Normal, Hard, Elite
PlayerHullPoints=2,1,0.9,0.75
EnemyHullPoints=0.75,1,1.125,1.25
PlayerNoiseModifier=0.9,1,1.05,1.1
EnemyNoiseModifier=1.1,1,0.95,0.9
PlayerTMARate=1.2,1,1,0.85
EnemyTMARate=0.85,1,1,1.2
CombatRepairTimeModifier=0.8,1,1.5,2
PlayerWeaponReloadTime=0.8,1,1.5,2

[Difficulty Settings Campaign]
StartPointsModifier=1.2,1,0.8,0.6
WinMissionModifier=1.2,1,0.75,0.5
FailMissionModifier=1.2,1,0.75,0.5
TonnageSunkModifier=1.2,1,0.75,0.5
TimeInPortModifier=0.8,1,1.2,1.5
RestockTimeModifier=0.8,1,2,3
RepairTimeModifier=0.8,1,2,3
RescueTimeModifier=0.8,1,2,3
NumberOfASW=1,2,3,4


Which leads me to the conclusion that maybe increasing the difficulty to elite will just result in artificial difficulty (eg. giving the AI TMA advantages) unless current state is unbalanced toward the player.

Onkel Neal, what's your difficulty settings?

[PL_Harpoon]

I did some testing on the enemy ability to dodge missiles.
First, I modded my sub's sonar (increased tenfold) and TMA speed so I can always see what he's doing. I also removed tubes from enemy sub so I don't need to worry about his torpedoes.

All tests were against a Victor III on hard difficulty.

Here are the results:

Test #1:



I think the image speaks for itself here. What's interesting is that while trying to dig himself in the seabed he was still dropping noisemakers (which stayed at his position, obviously) so the torpedo while trying to avoid the noisemaker was in turn deliberately avoiding the sub. I had to steer it into the ship manually to sink it. Anyway, turns out it could be a bizarre defensive tactic .

Test #2:



This time he was a bit more successful. He fooled the torpedo twice with noisemakers and then took a wrong turn and went straight into a torpedo. What's interesting is that he didn't even try any manoeuvres in vertical plane.

Test #3



You can see here that just like before, he turned away from the torpedo, let it get a bit closer then dropped a noisemaker and turned away (this time to the right). Still no up/down movements. Unfortunately the torpedo also turned right to avoid the noisemaker...


So he ran straight into it.

Test #4:



Some manoeuvring in vertical plane this time. Unfortunately seems the AI has problems with manual controls too . What's also strange here that it was a poor shot on my part and the torpedo never acquired. Also his surfacing move wasn't coupled with any course changes. In fact after a while he submerged again, continuing the same snake pattern in the same direction. Perhaps he actually didn't even detect the torpedo and this surfacing is some other issue.

Test #5:



Same tactics as before. Noisemaker and horizontal turn in a random direction. This time again straight into the torpedo.

My conclusion: there's definitely room for improvements here. The only examples when he was moving up/down happened before the torpedo has acquired. As soon as it did, his techniques were pretty consistent: turn tail, wait for torpedo to close in, drop a noisemaker and do a hard turn in a random direction.

My advice would be to add a simple check for available vertical space. If there's lots then do a sharp dive/ascend (depending on it's current depth). If there's only a couple hundred feet then perhaps go as low as possible first and then move up after dropping noisemaker.
I'm sure you could add a lot more options but these are relatively quick fixes.

[xXNightEagleXx]

Originally Posted by PL_Harpoon

...

Thanks for this effort. I bet that we can help devs to improve this good product.

PS: the same test should be done in Elite just to make sure

[Lanzfeld]

Great testing!

From reading those config files I think I'll just play on normal as it only seems to modify hull strength, TMA time, loudness, etc. I think the real key to making the game realistic is to adjust the sensors instead of the game difficulty

[xXNightEagleXx]

Originally Posted by Lanzfeld

Great testing!

From reading those config files I think I'll just play on normal as it only seems to modify hull strength, TMA time, loudness, etc. I think the real key to making the game realistic is to adjust the sensors instead of the game difficulty

sensors and evasive maneuvers. Maybe the AI does some good maneuver evasive from time to time, but it should be more consistent

[Julhelm]

The enemy subs use the same controls as the player, and during testing they had (and evidently still have) major issues with staying away from the terrain. So their vertical manuevers were removed, but this doesn't seem to have helped.

[-Pv-]

AI avoiding terrain seems to plague every sea based game I've ever played. I've always thought the main thing neglected is prediction- the AI knowing what's ahead a reasonable distance and taking corrective action in time for it to be effective.
-Pv-