GWX - Hydrophones and the map

IRONxMortlock · 12-18-06, 08:00 PM

I was tracking a large convoy last night with hydrophones (well I wasn'tbut my sonar man was). The weather turned bad though and I realised I was never going to be able to get close enough to see them so I decided to back away and try another setup once the weather improved. Anyway, there were quite a few escorts roaming around so I figured better safe than sorry and dropped down to 100m while I waited for everyone to pass.

Up to this point the sonar man had been adding hydrophone contacts to the map and keeping them up to date. However as soon as I went deep he stopped doing this. I went to the hydrophone station and manually listened and the convoy was as loud as ever but all contacts were now marked as unknown.

Is it supposed to work this way? Perhaps there's a realistic limitation to hydrophones so that they don't work well at depth (thermacline?) and it's the modelling of this that I'm seeing?:hmm: Or is this a bug?

Thanks,

M
________
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IRONxMortlock · 12-19-06, 06:41 AM

Update

I noticed that I was continuing to have this problem even at shallower depths. I replaced the radio room crew and suddenly - ta da! - the hydrophone contacts were been reported on the map again.

Therefore I assume this was caused by the poor performance of fatigued operators. Nice touch!

________
Easy vape review

HEMISENT · 12-19-06, 08:09 AM

Yup, radio room performance seems to be very sensitive to crew members' fatigue and rank. One of the first things I do is try to get qualified upper ranking PO's in those positions whenever underwater. I replace them with unqualified seaman on the surface and let the good guys rest...they are THAT important.

Martin1813 · 12-19-06, 10:22 AM

it's definitly the good solution, HEMISENT.

they are your ears and your eyes and it would a pity having a noob in the place while you're hunting/hunted because the good man can't raise hir arm.

Loaf · 12-19-06, 10:39 AM

I noticed playing GWX that I still occasionally get hydrophone reports while I am on the surface... Anybody else have this problem?

Is that something that can be fixed with a mod, or is it hard-coded?

Martin1813 · 12-19-06, 10:44 AM

I used to notice that sometimes with TGW but I don't know if this is still present in GWX.

JU_88 · 12-19-06, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loaf

I noticed playing GWX that I still occasionally get hydrophone reports while I am on the surface... Anybody else have this problem?

Is that something that can be fixed with a mod, or is it hard-coded?

Ive noticed that since the first time i ever played sh3.
So thats a stock game problem, not a GWX problem mate.

Other stock game problems with hydrophones include:

Hydrophone reports stationary ships

and

Hydrophone works though land. (the sh3 would doesn't always treat land as and obsitical where it should)

ASAIK -these issues are hard coded and cant be fixed easily.

ref · 12-19-06, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loaf

I noticed playing GWX that I still occasionally get hydrophone reports while I am on the surface... Anybody else have this problem?

Is that something that can be fixed with a mod, or is it hard-coded?

If you're in bad weather it's possible that the hydrophone reciever get's underwater for a moment.

Ref

Loaf · 12-19-06, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ref

If you're in bad weather it's possible that the hydrophone reciever get's underwater for a moment.

Ref

That would explain why it doesn't happen all the time... I find it a bit of an immersion-killer. I guess I could always un-man the hydrophone station when I am on the surface.

Deimos01 · 12-19-06, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loaf

Quote:

Originally Posted by ref

If you're in bad weather it's possible that the hydrophone reciever get's underwater for a moment.

Ref

That would explain why it doesn't happen all the time... I find it a bit of an immersion-killer. I guess I could always un-man the hydrophone station when I am on the surface.

Actually you are right on the money with that one. The game doesnt really understand the difference between being submerged and just being under a big wave on the surface as far as hydro goes. Alls it knows is when the sound head is under water then you get a sound fix. Not a GWX issue. It is a stock game issue.

Sailor Steve · 12-19-06, 04:24 PM

And that's only half the problem. You shouldn't have to have the hydrophone manned while surfaced, or the radio while submerged. having the two combined means that you have to do something very unrealistic just to have peak efficiency in the compartment. Same goes for having the dive planes manned while surfaced.

hocking · 12-20-06, 12:21 AM

Here is my current experience with the Hydrophones:

I am chasing a slow moving merchant in very heavy seas, fog, and rain. I can't see anything really. Here are the issue I am having with the Hydrophones:

1) I am getting no "Map update" images on my map indicating sound locations of ships close by. The sound-room reports sound contacts to me, but he will not mark the map where these sound contacts are coming from, and at what distance. He just verbally tells me.

2) When I go to the surface, he will continue to report the sound contacts to me. From this, I am able to enter a chase with the ship while keeping somewhat of a fix on its position. When I go to the Hydrophones myself, I see what is happening. The phones are being submerged occassionally when my boat buries into the heavy seas, so I am occasionally able to hear the merchant ahead of me. I do not hear it the entire time I am listening, but I will hear it for enough time to get a location on the merchant. I have not tried this is calm seas yet.

3) Then the most frustrating part of it. When I get in close to the merchant, my sound-room crewman starts reporting "No Sound Contact". It is like he leads me in real close, and then decides to go deaf on me leaving me to fend for myself. Well, fine, I go to the Hydrophones myself to listen for the sound contacts again. Nothing. I can't hear a thing no matter how long I sit there and try to find the merchant again. Then I submerge, and I will pick the merchant up with the Hydrophones completely away from me somewhere since it took so long to find it again. Very frustrating.

Why am I not getting any map updates from my sound-room? Why does the sound-room all of a sudden lose contact with the ship when it is in close? I think the opposite should happen, he should hear the ship better when we are closer to it.

One of my sound-room men are "Radio" Qualified, and the ohter is not. My green bar is nearly half filled I believe.

IRONxMortlock · 12-20-06, 01:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hocking

Here is my current experience with the Hydrophones:

I am chasing a slow moving merchant in very heavy seas, fog, and rain. I can't see anything really. Here are the issue I am having with the Hydrophones:

1) I am getting no "Map update" images on my map indicating sound locations of ships close by. The sound-room reports sound contacts to me, but he will not mark the map where these sound contacts are coming from, and at what distance. He just verbally tells me.

2) When I go to the surface, he will continue to report the sound contacts to me. From this, I am able to enter a chase with the ship while keeping somewhat of a fix on its position. When I go to the Hydrophones myself, I see what is happening. The phones are being submerged occassionally when my boat buries into the heavy seas, so I am occasionally able to hear the merchant ahead of me. I do not hear it the entire time I am listening, but I will hear it for enough time to get a location on the merchant. I have not tried this is calm seas yet.

3) Then the most frustrating part of it. When I get in close to the merchant, my sound-room crewman starts reporting "No Sound Contact". It is like he leads me in real close, and then decides to go deaf on me leaving me to fend for myself. Well, fine, I go to the Hydrophones myself to listen for the sound contacts again. Nothing. I can't hear a thing no matter how long I sit there and try to find the merchant again. Then I submerge, and I will pick the merchant up with the Hydrophones completely away from me somewhere since it took so long to find it again. Very frustrating.

Why am I not getting any map updates from my sound-room? Why does the sound-room all of a sudden lose contact with the ship when it is in close? I think the opposite should happen, he should hear the ship better when we are closer to it.

One of my sound-room men are "Radio" Qualified, and the ohter is not. My green bar is nearly half filled I believe.

Perhaps you have the same problem I experienced - your soundman is too tired and is nodding off at the (hydrophone) wheel. My guys were tired enough to not be able to report propoerly but not tired enough to show the red fatigue mark in the crew management screen.

Try swapping out the compartment with fresh P.Os.
________
JaDDee40DD

Kpt. Lehmann · 12-20-06, 01:53 AM

Also, as is historically accurate for the GHG hydrophones... GWX models a deadzone directly ahead that will prevent you from hearing contacts. (cone of silence if you will)

With GHG hydrophones... you can best listen to contacts at an angle.

hocking · 12-20-06, 08:07 AM

I believe you have answered a large portion of my question Kpt. Lehmann. I did not know about the dead zone directly ahead of the boat, and this is why my soundman was losing contact. I was trying to chase down the sound, so I was purposely trying to put the sound contact at my 12:00 position. I was able to still hear the contact from a distance, simply because I could not get the contact directly on my 12:00 position with any degree of accuracy because of the distance between us. But, the closer I got, the more accurate I was with putting the contact on my 12:00 position, and therefore putting the ship in the deadzone that you are speaking of (I am in a IIA with the GHG hydrophones). This is why my soundman would lose contact I am sure. I love the realism and historical accuracy that you have put into your mod.

However, my soundman would be very slow in picking up the contact again, even after I have already passed him and he pops up again 180 degrees behind me. In other words, even after the contact is off of my 12:00 position, and we are still very close to the contact, my soundman has a hard time finding it again. Usually by the time he does find it again, the contact is a pretty good distance away (he is reported as being at a "medium distance" rather than a "short distance" away like he was before contact was lost).

As far as map contacts are concerned, I do put in fresh crewman to see if it makes a difference. I had read your post about this before this incident occured, and the first thing I did when the sound contacts weren't showing up was change out the radio room staff to two fresh Petty Officers. Still no luck. One of them was even had the "Radio" Qualification designation (I can't remember if this crewman with the radio designation was fresh or not). Even with two fresh creman in their, still no map updates.

I am afraid I might have screwed something up when I tried to install some old map tools I like to use using JSGME. I uninstalled what I had put into GWX, but I still may have messed something up I am afraid. I installed some old Nanograph, bearing/measurement map tool, and transparent overlay map tool. I then took them out after one patrol thinking that I should not have done that.

I hate it that I did that so early because now I don't know what kind of map features GWX offers as far as ship contact reports are concerned (both sound contacts, and other u-boats "Contact Report" contacts are concerened such as Task Forces and stuff like that). Any suggestions?

12-18-06, 08:00 PM	#1
IRONxMortlock Watch Officer Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Queensland, Australia Posts: 339 Downloads: 1 Uploads: 0	GWX - Hydrophones and the map I was tracking a large convoy last night with hydrophones (well I wasn'tbut my sonar man was). The weather turned bad though and I realised I was never going to be able to get close enough to see them so I decided to back away and try another setup once the weather improved. Anyway, there were quite a few escorts roaming around so I figured better safe than sorry and dropped down to 100m while I waited for everyone to pass. Up to this point the sonar man had been adding hydrophone contacts to the map and keeping them up to date. However as soon as I went deep he stopped doing this. I went to the hydrophone station and manually listened and the convoy was as loud as ever but all contacts were now marked as unknown. Is it supposed to work this way? Perhaps there's a realistic limitation to hydrophones so that they don't work well at depth (thermacline?) and it's the modelling of this that I'm seeing?:hmm: Or is this a bug? Thanks, M ________ perfect tits Webcams Last edited by IRONxMortlock; 08-14-11 at 02:21 PM.

12-19-06, 06:41 AM	#2
IRONxMortlock Watch Officer Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Queensland, Australia Posts: 339 Downloads: 1 Uploads: 0	Update I noticed that I was continuing to have this problem even at shallower depths. I replaced the radio room crew and suddenly - ta da! - the hydrophone contacts were been reported on the map again. Therefore I assume this was caused by the poor performance of fatigued operators. Nice touch! ________ Easy vape review Last edited by IRONxMortlock; 08-14-11 at 02:22 PM.

12-19-06, 08:09 AM	#3
HEMISENT Ace of the Deep Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Northern Illinois Posts: 1,052 Downloads: 135 Uploads: 0	Yup, radio room performance seems to be very sensitive to crew members' fatigue and rank. One of the first things I do is try to get qualified upper ranking PO's in those positions whenever underwater. I replace them with unqualified seaman on the surface and let the good guys rest...they are THAT important. __________________ Nuke 'em till they glow!

12-19-06, 10:22 AM	#4
Martin1813 Torpedoman Join Date: May 2005 Location: Caen, France Posts: 111 Downloads: 4 Uploads: 0	it's definitly the good solution, HEMISENT. they are your ears and your eyes and it would a pity having a noob in the place while you're hunting/hunted because the good man can't raise hir arm. __________________

12-19-06, 10:44 AM	#6
Martin1813 Torpedoman Join Date: May 2005 Location: Caen, France Posts: 111 Downloads: 4 Uploads: 0	I used to notice that sometimes with TGW but I don't know if this is still present in GWX. __________________

12-19-06, 10:39 AM	#5
Loaf Mate Join Date: May 2001 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Posts: 58 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	I noticed playing GWX that I still occasionally get hydrophone reports while I am on the surface... Anybody else have this problem? Is that something that can be fixed with a mod, or is it hard-coded?

12-19-06, 04:24 PM	#11
Sailor Steve Eternal Patrol Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: High in the mountains of Utah Posts: 50,369 Downloads: 745 Uploads: 249	And that's only half the problem. You shouldn't have to have the hydrophone manned while surfaced, or the radio while submerged. having the two combined means that you have to do something very unrealistic just to have peak efficiency in the compartment. Same goes for having the dive planes manned while surfaced. __________________ “Never do anything you can't take back.” —Rocky Russo

12-20-06, 12:21 AM	#12
hocking Sparky Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 154 Downloads: 156 Uploads: 0	Here is my current experience with the Hydrophones: I am chasing a slow moving merchant in very heavy seas, fog, and rain. I can't see anything really. Here are the issue I am having with the Hydrophones: 1) I am getting no "Map update" images on my map indicating sound locations of ships close by. The sound-room reports sound contacts to me, but he will not mark the map where these sound contacts are coming from, and at what distance. He just verbally tells me. 2) When I go to the surface, he will continue to report the sound contacts to me. From this, I am able to enter a chase with the ship while keeping somewhat of a fix on its position. When I go to the Hydrophones myself, I see what is happening. The phones are being submerged occassionally when my boat buries into the heavy seas, so I am occasionally able to hear the merchant ahead of me. I do not hear it the entire time I am listening, but I will hear it for enough time to get a location on the merchant. I have not tried this is calm seas yet. 3) Then the most frustrating part of it. When I get in close to the merchant, my sound-room crewman starts reporting "No Sound Contact". It is like he leads me in real close, and then decides to go deaf on me leaving me to fend for myself. Well, fine, I go to the Hydrophones myself to listen for the sound contacts again. Nothing. I can't hear a thing no matter how long I sit there and try to find the merchant again. Then I submerge, and I will pick the merchant up with the Hydrophones completely away from me somewhere since it took so long to find it again. Very frustrating. Why am I not getting any map updates from my sound-room? Why does the sound-room all of a sudden lose contact with the ship when it is in close? I think the opposite should happen, he should hear the ship better when we are closer to it. One of my sound-room men are "Radio" Qualified, and the ohter is not. My green bar is nearly half filled I believe.

12-20-06, 01:53 AM	#14
Kpt. Lehmann GWX Project Director Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: The Republic of Texas Posts: 6,993 Downloads: 124 Uploads: 0	Also, as is historically accurate for the GHG hydrophones... GWX models a deadzone directly ahead that will prevent you from hearing contacts. (cone of silence if you will) With GHG hydrophones... you can best listen to contacts at an angle. __________________ www.thegreywolves.com All you need is good men. - Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock

12-20-06, 08:07 AM	#15
hocking Sparky Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 154 Downloads: 156 Uploads: 0	I believe you have answered a large portion of my question Kpt. Lehmann. I did not know about the dead zone directly ahead of the boat, and this is why my soundman was losing contact. I was trying to chase down the sound, so I was purposely trying to put the sound contact at my 12:00 position. I was able to still hear the contact from a distance, simply because I could not get the contact directly on my 12:00 position with any degree of accuracy because of the distance between us. But, the closer I got, the more accurate I was with putting the contact on my 12:00 position, and therefore putting the ship in the deadzone that you are speaking of (I am in a IIA with the GHG hydrophones). This is why my soundman would lose contact I am sure. I love the realism and historical accuracy that you have put into your mod. However, my soundman would be very slow in picking up the contact again, even after I have already passed him and he pops up again 180 degrees behind me. In other words, even after the contact is off of my 12:00 position, and we are still very close to the contact, my soundman has a hard time finding it again. Usually by the time he does find it again, the contact is a pretty good distance away (he is reported as being at a "medium distance" rather than a "short distance" away like he was before contact was lost). As far as map contacts are concerned, I do put in fresh crewman to see if it makes a difference. I had read your post about this before this incident occured, and the first thing I did when the sound contacts weren't showing up was change out the radio room staff to two fresh Petty Officers. Still no luck. One of them was even had the "Radio" Qualification designation (I can't remember if this crewman with the radio designation was fresh or not). Even with two fresh creman in their, still no map updates. I am afraid I might have screwed something up when I tried to install some old map tools I like to use using JSGME. I uninstalled what I had put into GWX, but I still may have messed something up I am afraid. I installed some old Nanograph, bearing/measurement map tool, and transparent overlay map tool. I then took them out after one patrol thinking that I should not have done that. I hate it that I did that so early because now I don't know what kind of map features GWX offers as far as ship contact reports are concerned (both sound contacts, and other u-boats "Contact Report" contacts are concerened such as Task Forces and stuff like that). Any suggestions?