LuftWolf and Amizaur's Realism Mod Poll #11: Adv. Torpedoes

[LuftWolf]

I just tested the ATP mod again and the subrocs aren't exploding on my computer... in fact, since all torpedoes in the playtest are using the same main doctrine still except for the ADCAP and UGST and all are using the 3.02 homing doctrine, there is no reason at all why some torpedoes would explode on decoys and some would not other than something random related to that specific in game instance.

Can you try to be as specific as possible as to what was going on at the time?

[Wildcat]

It has happened before and I was aware that the torpedoes may explode if 2 cm's are dropped. However I figured it would be irrelevant against an LA sub since the default cm loadout is 1 active and 1 passive cm. Does that mean even if the torpedo is active it will explode on 2 passive cm's?

I'll reproduce the scenario sometime soon and detail it here.

[LuftWolf]

The countermeasures for AI subs are handled completely differently than for the player subs.

It's possible that it could have dropped two at the same time... but not likely.

In terms of passive decoys, AI never drop passive decoys in LWAMI.

[LuftWolf]

Please be very very very very specific about everything when you retest.

The non-CM exploding torpedo mod has been out for 7-8 months now, and this is the first I've heard about torpedoes exploding on decoys outside of when two get dropped directly on top of each other (and I discovered that by accident about two months ago).

Cheers,
David

[Amizaur]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

I didn't botch the installation, the only way that's possible is if the installer for lwami is broken. I'm betting that those two torpedos were just forgotten when it came to the countermeasure thing. All the other torpedoes do not explode on countermeasures.

Very easy to check. Go to your doctrine directory (folder ) and open the TorpHoming.txt file in any text editor (notepad for example). Original file was 326 bytes long, modded one is twice as long (over 700 bytes) and has a

"; torpedos not detonating on CMs (with exeption of towed CM) mod by Amizaur"

line added in headers.

If what is in your doctrine directory is standard SCS 326 bytes long doctrine, then you have the answer and if it's really the modded (700+ bytes with note in headers) file, then we have a problem and have to check why it isn't working.

[Amizaur]

Originally Posted by LuftWolf

BTW, I tested the very short WireWatch sensor (200 yards)... and although the sim keeps the ownship tgttrack, it does not update the solution once the sensor loses contact (which is the way it SHOULD work)...

Well then it really has to stay long range, but maybe not 350000m but reduce it just to longest possible torpedo range, or even longest possible wire range. After that wire is broken anyway and wire watch is not needed anymore.
I hoped it can be short range or even disabled after own sub is detected...
I though that because in Maverick case tgt once locked was not refreshed and homing worked perfectly. I wonder then if a torpedo would still home on a sub if it's sensor was disabled :-)

P.S. One day I tried to make a torpedo seeker with two very narrow sensor cones looking to the front-sides in V patter (so NOT to the front) and after target is locked and torpedo turns to it, target is outside seeker cone and target don't get active pings anymore :-) Evil weapon, would work great against non maneuvering surfaces if proximity fuse was added. Only if it maneuvers and gets out of the "blind" front cone, it's detected once again by one of side looking seekers and again homed on... it was working crudely and I planned to improve it later but forgot

P.S.2 Looking at torpedo seeker cone (just wanted to try once more what I described above) I noticed that seeker cone parameters are set only for azimuth (+/- 45 deg for example) but in elevation it's 0 so either not used or... all around 360deg ! For years it was annoying me that torpedos running in level detects targets even directly above them so out of real seeker's cone. I don't remember now if I tried to set seeker cones correct in elevation too and if it worked... Anyone knows if elevation settings works at all for sensors in DW ?

P.S.3 AN-SPS-55 has set cone in both azimuth and elevation (+/-10deg) so it should work ! Also CIWS seeker is limited in elevation to 40deg.

I think we should set this to correct value for all torpedo and missile seekers (then you can escape torpedo seeker cone not only in horizontal plane, but in vertical too !! And torpedo depth settings become much more important, torp set to wrong depth and enabled too close would have target out of cone in elevation, currently it's impossible !)
I would set sensor cone elevation angle for same value or little less than azimuth angle (so for example an ADCAP with cone +/-45 deg in azimuth would have +/- 30-45 deg cone in elevation).
Setting this to correct value for air radars (especially MH-60 and P-3, but also EW and fighters) is an option - could have a positive effect on realism, Seahawk and Orion radars would have correct minimum distance if flying high, couldn't detect a close surface tgt from high altitude. But for weapon seekers it's a must !

For sub and ship sonars it's not that important, most sensors have 180+ deg cones so can hear straight down or up also... Maybe for the actives... then you' should have a minimum effective distance for deep submerged contacts... but I can easily imagine that ship mounted active sonar with >180deg azimuth cone, can scan directly underneath too ?

[Amizaur]

Originally Posted by LuftWolf

In terms of passive decoys, AI never drop passive decoys in LWAMI.

Maybe they should ? A noisy sub like Han attacked by passive torp is just dead meat now...? It it the same for ships or ships do use passive CMs, I can't remember now...:hmm:

[LuftWolf]

It is a different doctrine, so they tend to use both in a few numbers when attacked, for those with OTS CM's.

I'm going to do some work on both the SubDef doctrine to prevent grounding and the SubEvadWep doctrine to give better evasion capability and more intelligent decoy firing behavior.

The thing is, even with the doctrine as it is now, with two single line changes to the stock doctrine, the subs do a pretty good job of avoiding active torpedoes right now.

With the torpedo ATP mod, passive torpedoes will once again be a good choice for use against deep subs for "a little something different" because I'm going to set the doctrines for passive enabled torpedoes to maintain a RealSpeed of 40kts for the ADCAP and 35kts for the UGST (the max speed of their passive sensors). So the practical difference between firing one or the other at near max operational depth will be something closer to 2-7 kts rather than 10-15kts... and the sensors themselves are going to be fundamentally different, so we are going to see what happens.

Cheers,
David

[Amizaur]

Originally Posted by LuftWolf

I'm going to set the doctrines for passive enabled torpedoes to maintain a RealSpeed of 40kts for the ADCAP and 35kts for the UGST

Well, in fact the ATP mod was in two versions initially. One simply decreased speed with depth without compensating for it (the one used now) and the second, little more complicated, was trying to compensate for speed decrease if only possible - if set to 55kts it can't do anything at depth to keep it, because it's at max throttle already, but if set to 40kts then when slowing at depth it can increase throttle (increasing fuel flow and decreasing the range of course!) adequately to compensate for it and keep 40kts as long as possible (almost to max depth). Do you have this version too ? Of course it has no advanced featrures, but the core of fuel and speed calculations can be moved to current doctrine.

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Amizaur

Well, in fact the ATP mod was in two versions initially. One simply decreased speed with depth without compensating for it (the one used now) and the second, little more complicated, was trying to compensate for speed decrease if only possible - if set to 55kts it can't do anything at depth to keep it, because it's at max throttle already, but if set to 40kts then when slowing at depth it can increase throttle (increasing fuel flow and decreasing the range of course!) adequately to compensate for it and keep 40kts as long as possible (almost to max depth). Do you have this version too ? Of course it has no advanced featrures, but the core of fuel and speed calculations can be moved to current doctrine.

Why 35 knots? Heck, even 40 might be low, 45 knots is usually sufficient to get an acquisition. Also, no matter how slow the torp is when it is enabled and searching, it would be a good thing if it accelerated as much as it could without washing out once it acquires a target.

[LuftWolf]

@Amizaur, no I don't have that version, but I was going to code up something that would include a variable switch for when the torpedo was passive enabled to maintain 40kts when possible, although if you have something like this already, please send it to me.

@Molon, the torpedo seekers are going to be completely redone, so we'll see about the speeds. I'm going to design the max passive speed without washout to be 40kts for the adcap and 35kts for the UGST.

The speeds are going to work as follows. If you set the torpedo speed to a certain value, it will set a thottle for that speed at near-surface depth and then work its speed decrease from that value. This is so you can have some kind of control over the range of your torpedoes. If we set the speed to be maintained in general, then deeper torpedoes will use up much more fuel than currently, because the throttle setting will be increased, but the speed will still be the same. The total range travelled by the torpedo would be much less predictable. I think this way is better because if you are setting the speed of a torpedo to be less than max speed, then you are primarily concerned about increasing the total range travelled.

Otherwise, you are making a passive shot, so that's why if the torpedo is passive enabled, it will try to maintain its max passive speed. Keep in mind, this is universal for all torpedoes (although electric are easier to predict because the depth does not effect speed or range). Although, for wireguided torpedoes, I figure, once again, if you are making a slow speed shot, you are trying to shoot a target out of wirerange, so they will behave like the other torpedoes. Although, if you enable them yourself, meaning that you are probably engaging a near target where you want the torpedo making max speed, the options you have are to set max passive speed at 40kts or 35kts for adcap/ugst respectively or max torpedo speed for active homing mode.

I think it will be quite intuitive and user-friendly, taking into account the 85% of cases that make up the majority of ways you want to use the torpedo.

Cheers,
David

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by LuftWolf

The speeds are going to work as follows. If you set the torpedo speed to a certain value, it will set a thottle for that speed at near-surface depth and then work its speed decrease from that value. This is so you can have some kind of control over the range of your torpedoes. If we set the speed to be maintained in general, then deeper torpedoes will use up much more fuel than currently, because the throttle setting will be increased, but the speed will still be the same. The total range travelled by the torpedo would be much less predictable. I think this way is better because if you are setting the speed of a torpedo to be less than max speed, then you are primarily concerned about increasing the total range travelled.

Isn't this the way it's working right now?

[LuftWolf]

Yes, with the exception that the torpedoes when passiveenabled don't maintain their maxpassivehoming speed when running deep, but this is straightforward to change.

Cheers,
David

[Amizaur]

Originally Posted by LuftWolf

Yes, with the exception that the torpedoes when passiveenabled don't maintain their maxpassivehoming speed when running deep, but this is straightforward to change.

I am thinking about the same thing:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...t=93264&page=5

- to make passive enable limit true 40kts .

Well in my version this required few calculations - calculate the speed decrease (well it's calculated already) and increase setspeed (throttle) accordingly, but before that check if throttle doesn't exceed max (the max ff could be calculated in init section for full throttle setting) or if speed near surface on this setting doesn't exceed max speed... If it does, then set max speed instead...

[LuftWolf]

A quick update for those keeping score:

I have "finished" the core AI doctrines. In terms of the AI, what now needs to be done is to tune all the parameters in the database and make a few unique AI torpedo doctrines.

In terms of the player torpedoes, the individualization process is on its way, but none of the doctrines are entirely finished yet and the parameters need to be finalized for each torpedo. I wanted to get the AI out of the way first, as it is a lot grunt work, and in order to keep everything standardized, I wanted to finish the research along with the final AI database changes.

After this is all done, I have to do the work on the sensors, but this ought to be fairly straightforward.

Cheers,
David