Realism mod (discussion)

[Julhelm]

Of course it's not authentic. We just went with the commonly quoted sensor range. You have to understand that all of the sensor and weapon performance data are educated guesswork because the real figures are classified.

Originally Posted by Julhelm

Of course it's not authentic. We just went with the commonly quoted sensor range. You have to understand that all of the sensor and weapon performance data are educated guesswork because the real figures are classified.

I know that, otherwise it would mean someone is heavily violating OPSEC etc, and I doubt this is/was the case.
Anyways, I wonder why you went with such extreme values, especially after other subsims showed how it is done "right" (makes it feel right, I mean).

It is so absurd to see them going after some wreck some 90° at the horizon instead of the cavitating target 1000y in front of them, especially if the wire broke (thanks for adding the values for that in the config, really!).

[Lanzfeld]

Enjoying the mod Harpoon!

Looking forward to version 2.

No critique real yet. Just trying to "drive" the 688. Not sure if it's realistic but it feels heavy.

[PL_Harpoon]

I've started to think about overhauling torpedo noise, so I've created this simple spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1880361556

It uses a simple equation to calculate torp noise values.

Feel free to comment/propose better solutions.

[Julhelm]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

I know that, otherwise it would mean someone is heavily violating OPSEC etc, and I doubt this is/was the case.
Anyways, I wonder why you went with such extreme values, especially after other subsims showed how it is done "right" (makes it feel right, I mean).

It is so absurd to see them going after some wreck some 90° at the horizon instead of the cavitating target 1000y in front of them, especially if the wire broke (thanks for adding the values for that in the config, really!).

We went with the published official data. But there are some issues I was not aware of when I balanced the weapons. A lot of the torpedo data comes from Navweaps and USNI World Naval Weapon Systems so it's not like we randomly pull numbers from somewhere. Fast Attack felt about right, but no idea what the acquisition ranges actually were in that game, because of the abstract WYSIWYG nature of the plots.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by PL_Harpoon

Ok, let me explain. From what I've tested unlike diving which has proper momentum, turning of the ship is just linked to rudder angle. So, even at full speed going from full 30 deg turn to straight takes as much time as it takes for the rudder to centre. That I think is wrong. So, I significantly reduced the rudder speed (perhaps too much) and increased turn rate to compensate. In the game it means you need to use lesser angles more and if you do a full rudder turn you have to commit to it (as it will probably mean changing the course of at least 90 degrees). You can still use the same evasion methods as before.

OK, that sounds more like something I can get behind. I definitely agree that it feels wierd that a 30 degree turn can center in only ~5 degrees. Maybe I'll test it when you've transformed all the subs to this configuration.

Honestly, this requires some more testing. I know for a fact that helis are still dangerous although it is now possible to shake them off by running deep and silent and changing course.

That's good to hear. Though since you've actually boosted the sensitivity of the helicopter's dipping sonar, it should continue to work just fine.

What I'm concerned most of all are the sonobuoys, because they along with the dipping sonar are unique in the game in requiring discrete search as opposed to the continuous search being undertaken by all the other ships and submarines. Discrete search (which includes sprint-and-drift) tactics are a challenge for AI because the decision of what spacing to use between the searches depends on the predicted detection range, which in turn depends on the sensitivity of the detector.

I don't know how they programmed the AI. For example, it may be a fixed formula where they drop buoys every X yards, or it may be a variable formula that takes into account the buoy's designated sensitivity. If it is the former, then the AI won't adjust its tactics to the new weakened buoys and gaps will form, making the nerf far more serious than intended.

Obviously testing is required, but can Julhelm or someone else shed any preliminary light on this topic?

sinking Sierra with one torpedo, or sinking Sovremenny with two?

I can see the dilemma. Personally, if it comes down to it, I'll agree that Sierra and above can require two torpedoes if that's the only way to ensure a Sovremenny has two torps worth of "health".

What do you mean by "new-generation seeker"? The Mark-48 in the game are not ADCAPs.

I know they aren't. But even the Mk 48 Mod 1, the first operational variant is several precious years more advanced than the Mark 37 Mod 2 at a time when computers are just being introduced and advances in sonar technology are made at a high speed. To give an idea the kind of improvements in this era, If you compare for example the 1967 MGK-300 Rubin sonar versus the 1976 MGK-400 Rubikon, the range actually triples from 60 to 200+ kilometers (obviously, they are assuming a very noisy target). In such conditions do you really think the increase over Mark 37 would only be in the order of 60%, even counting the fact it is faster?

As for 1,600m, I can see two possibilities.
1) That might have been the Mark 46 (with a much smaller and thus less capable seeker head). The FAS site seems to have ingested some Mark-46ish information, including "Min/Max ASROC launching ranges 1500 to 12000 yards" and "Run characteristics 6-8 minutes downward".
2) If it really has to do with the Mark 48, it might reflect its surface detection range. If you look at the below site, for the UGST the Russians claim 2.5km detection range against a submarine, but only 1.2km for a surface ship - presumably the surface ship range is less because so much of the ship is out of the water and the increased surface noise so near the surface. From that, we may infer that a torpedo with 4000m acquisition against submarines may plausibly be reduced to roughly 1.6km against a surface ship.
http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/naval-systems/ugst/

Of course, maybe one can argue for gameplay we should nerf the detection range anyway, but the above is my two cents on the "realism" part.

Yeah, I agree that wires brake a bit too much (would be great if we could be able to set break angle from ship). But if you're at 5 or 10 knots and roughly face the direction of a torpedo you can easily wire-guide it for at least 10 KYDS. And I don't agree that wire braking motivates you to setup them properly. In vanilla if I wanted a confirmed hit I just fired a torpedo to activate just as it turned on it's course. The only way it could miss is if there was a wreck between it and the target. A lot of times I just broke the wire myself to load another torp.

Personally, the risk of the target turning out to be very far away has been an effective deterrent against using "gamey tactics", and unfortunately, I've already lost way too many torpedoes within a minute or so of launching them to feel like "easily wire-guide it for at least 10 KYDS" is a reliable idea. In desperation I now stop after launching to try and save my torpedo wires and I consider myself lucky when the torpedo lasts long enough I get to cut the wire.

[PL_Harpoon]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

That's good to hear. Though since you've actually boosted the sensitivity of the helicopter's dipping sonar, it should continue to work just fine.

They seem to work nice during my testing. Right now it works something like that. If he's let's say about 500 yards away he won't get a precise solution if you're sailing deep and in silent mode. But as soon as you go to as much as 10 knots he can track you easily.

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

I can see the dilemma. Personally, if it comes down to it, I'll agree that Sierra and above can require two torpedoes if that's the only way to ensure a Sovremenny has two torps worth of "health".

Well, we have 300 tons of displacement between them so there is some leeway here. Perhaps I should fine-tune it so that a Mark 48 can just barely kill a Sierra but just almost kill Sovremenny.

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

I know they aren't. But even the Mk 48 Mod 1, the first operational variant is several precious years more advanced than the Mark 37 Mod 2 at a time when computers are just being introduced and advances in sonar technology are made at a high speed. To give an idea the kind of improvements in this era, If you compare for example the 1967 MGK-300 Rubin sonar versus the 1976 MGK-400 Rubikon, the range actually triples from 60 to 200+ kilometers (obviously, they are assuming a very noisy target). In such conditions do you really think the increase over Mark 37 would only be in the order of 60%, even counting the fact it is faster?

As for 1,600m, I can see two possibilities.
1) That might have been the Mark 46 (with a much smaller and thus less capable seeker head). The FAS site seems to have ingested some Mark-46ish information, including "Min/Max ASROC launching ranges 1500 to 12000 yards" and "Run characteristics 6-8 minutes downward".
2) If it really has to do with the Mark 48, it might reflect its surface detection range. If you look at the below site, for the UGST the Russians claim 2.5km detection range against a submarine, but only 1.2km for a surface ship - presumably the surface ship range is less because so much of the ship is out of the water and the increased surface noise so near the surface. From that, we may infer that a torpedo with 4000m acquisition against submarines may plausibly be reduced to roughly 1.6km against a surface ship.
http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/naval-systems/ugst/

Of course, maybe one can argue for gameplay we should nerf the detection range anyway, but the above is my two cents on the "realism" part.

Well, there's also the case of self noise. A very good sensor may be just as effective on a noisy platform as a worse sensor on a quiet one. That could explain them having similar detection ranges. If you compare propulsion, all Soviet torpedoes use electric batteries, while Mk48 uses piston engines along with pump jets. It also has two propellers. I think that can create a lot more noise that relatively quiet electric motors.

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

Personally, the risk of the target turning out to be very far away has been an effective deterrent against using "gamey tactics", and unfortunately, I've already lost way too many torpedoes within a minute or so of launching them to feel like "easily wire-guide it for at least 10 KYDS" is a reliable idea. In desperation I now stop after launching to try and save my torpedo wires and I consider myself lucky when the torpedo lasts long enough I get to cut the wire.

That's why, after some time with the game I quickly started to set torpedo waypoints close and only after they didn't break I moved them closer to target. But the patch seemed to improve that as right now Mk48s have 10% chance of braking the wire instead of initial 25.

[Lanzfeld]

Hey Harpoon,
Have you looked at the "refined sonar and countermeasures" mod in the download section? I was wondering if this might be something that you would want to add to your realism Mod. I think basically it makes all sonars less sensitive. It seems like it would be more realistic to me. What do you think?


Also when using a realistic mod what factor should be used under distance setting? X1, x2, etc...?

[PL_Harpoon]

Originally Posted by Lanzfeld

Hey Harpoon,
Have you looked at the "refined sonar and countermeasures" mod in the download section? I was wondering if this might be something that you would want to add to your realism Mod. I think basically it makes all sonars less sensitive. It seems like it would be more realistic to me. What do you think?

Yeah, I have, but the thing is, I don't think that sonars are on the whole too powerful. If you consider that engagement starts as soon as there's a contact it seems that your sensors can pick up a convoy at 20 km (with good weather). I think that's a reasonable distance. With silent running subs it can go down to 5.

As for the active countermeasures, they seem interesting at first but then they're using VLS which is a detriment to me, and what's the point anyway?
To be honest I haven't noticed a difference in behaviour between active and passive torpedoes (other that passive don't ping). From my experience you can be dead silent and still be detected by a passive torp at the same distance as with active. They also react identical to noisemakers.

In my opinion they should work like that:
Passive torps effectiveness should increase with the noise of the target countered by the speed (noise) of a torpedo and ambient noise. When encountering the noisemaker they should identify it as such and try to go around it (basically like they do it now). Also, they should not go for wrecks or at least try to avoid them just like noisemakers.

Active torpedoes effectiveness should depend entirely on distance to target reduced only if they're on the opposite side of a layer. When they encounter a countermeasure they should just go for it with a chance of exploding on contact (their ping has returned so there must be a target there). They also might accidentally target a wreck.

If we had torpedoes acting like that or similar, having active CM would make sense. Right now it doesn't.

Originally Posted by Lanzfeld

Also when using a realistic mod what factor should be used under distance setting? X1, x2, etc...?

Yeah, I forgot about that.
1:1 scale, 1x time.

[Julhelm]

We never had any proper tools to debug the AI during development. We've since developed something so expect major improvements in this area in the coming patches.

[PL_Harpoon]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

We never had any proper tools to debug the AI during development. We've since developed something so expect major improvements in this area in the coming patches.

That's some great news.
Keep it up

[keltos01]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

We never had any proper tools to debug the AI during development. We've since developed something so expect major improvements in this area in the coming patches.

love your AI (erm actually kindo hate it ! )

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by PL_Harpoon

Well, we have 300 tons of displacement between them so there is some leeway here. Perhaps I should fine-tune it so that a Mark 48 can just barely kill a Sierra but just almost kill Sovremenny.

I've been doing some thinking while rummaging through the customizable text files.

If "displacement" primarily controls the ship's survivability, with its maneuverability really being controlled by "Acceleration", "Deceleration", "Turn Rate" ... etc, then we can increase the differential between surface ships and submarines by using the sub's surfaced displacement value (for a Sierra, it is 6300 tons) as the starting point, not the submerged value.

After all, comparing apples to apples, the real mass of a sub is its surfaced displacement. Its submerged displacement is preplanned flooding with seawater. Why should that be considered part of the ship, and even its survivability guestimated on that basis?

What do you think? This should make it much easier to have vulnerable subs and suitably tough surface ships.

[FPSchazly]

Is displacement really the primary factor? Isn't it reserve buoyancy? I am not a naval architect or know much about this topic, but given an American sub and a Russian sub of the same displacement and assuming the American is single-hulled and the Russian is double-hulled, the Russian sub would have a higher survivability due to increased reserve buoyancy.

[PL_Harpoon]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

I've been doing some thinking while rummaging through the customizable text files.

If "displacement" primarily controls the ship's survivability, with its maneuverability really being controlled by "Acceleration", "Deceleration", "Turn Rate" ... etc, then we can increase the differential between surface ships and submarines by using the sub's surfaced displacement value (for a Sierra, it is 6300 tons) as the starting point, not the submerged value.

After all, comparing apples to apples, the real mass of a sub is its surfaced displacement. Its submerged displacement is preplanned flooding with seawater. Why should that be considered part of the ship, and even its survivability guestimated on that basis?

What do you think? This should make it much easier to have vulnerable subs and suitably tough surface ships.

It's a good idea. Will have to test to see if it doesn't affect diving/surfacing.

Originally Posted by FPSchazly

Is displacement really the primary factor? Isn't it reserve buoyancy? I am not a naval architect or know much about this topic, but given an American sub and a Russian sub of the same displacement and assuming the American is single-hulled and the Russian is double-hulled, the Russian sub would have a higher survivability due to increased reserve buoyancy.

The only proof I have is a little test I made. I've significantly bumped displacement for Alligator (basically added one 0 to the number) and tried to sink it in tutorial mission. If I remember correctly it took 4 torpedoes to sink it, but instead of sinking it just flipped over and floated on the surface.
That's why I'm cautious about changing displacement and that's why I choose to account for different hull designs by modifying Player and AI hull modifiers in difficulty settings.