[TEC] Adding new sensors

[tater]

This will give some baseline geometry. You can find ranges at which it become theoretically possible to see a target. You can see how weather might affect it, too. Say the shears are the only part of the boat hull up to the target. If the sea state has 12 ft swells, you might only be visible a fraction of the time, so the enemy watch not only has to see a tiny area, but has to happen to be looking at that small solid angle between swells. You, OTOH, have a target that subtends a larger solid angle, the chances of spotting it between swells is much greater.

tater

[Hitman]

Hum, the report I remember right now with a longest range detection was some 25000 yards. As you say, smoke or very high superstructures give away any large ship (Specially battleships). IMHO -and I have been working on something similar for SH3- the best way to have an interesting gameplay mod (I deliberately steer away from the dreaded "realism" word) is as follows:

1.- Decide which maximum visual distance you want to work with. I would suggest something between 16000 and 20000

2.- Sub always sees first. Yes I know a high lookout on a ship, geometry, blah, blah, blah... I have never readed a report where the sub was spotted first in normal daytime conditions (Fog and night time are another matter, since optical devices count a lot here and the japanese had good ones) instead of the opposite. For merchanst anyway that should be the rule.
It is to be noted here that while a lower in the water sub will see an enemy ship silhouetted againts the horizon, the enemy ship will see most of the submarine -the low hull profile- against the dark water background except in the special case of the sub being exactly over the horizon, which is a rather rare situation given its low profile.

3.- Decissions in compromises must always be taken in favour of a submarine point of view game. If you must allow Battleship long range sensors for having gun battles but that means detecting submarines in a way that spoils gameplay, then to the hell with the gun duels. We are willing to have a good submarine game, not a Hollywood blockbuster!

4.- It is yet to be determined if SH4 has carried over from SH3 the dreaded "vampire vision" bug , which becomes very noticeable when you increase spotting ranges.

That's my 2 cents for now. I'll be watching this thread with interest

EDIT:

I forgot: Even if you clone sensors, you are limited to only one CFG file for the main parameters. And those are what counts more.....

[tater]

Regarding sub always sees first. There is no possible argument against that based in reality, so that's the first rule to me. It should ALWAYS be true, because it is in reality. (I know you agree)

I assume from the way you posted it's some kind of rehashed discussion that has happened. That's actually kind of funny, because it's practically self-evident. If the lookouts that are high see the conning tower, the conning tower sees THEM, too. And the high watchers are sitting under a large cloud of smoke, lol. Even if they are making zero smoke, they have radars, radio aerials, etc above them.

The only possible scenario for a ship spotting a sub first (aside from human error like the watch sleeping on the job) would be weather conditions that have the first contact well inside hull up range for the sub (by definition more area of the larger ship will always be hull up to the sub, however). At that point, the number of eyes looking, or the equipment they have might start to tell (bigger binos, etc). At that point you look at the number of watchers, and the area of the 2 targets. Of course we'd probably have read about such an encounter, and it never happens that way in patrol logs. If the first you see of a DD is tracers, the visual ranges are pretty screwy.

The geometry is such that both units see equally relative to the observer positions in question. If the guy 120' up on Kongo can see 30' of sub below the watch crew in the shears, the watch crew on the shears can see 30' below the observer on Kongo---and there is a ton more stuff in that 30' than the sub's 30'.

It's simple geometric optics where both sight lines are tangent to the horizon (and coincident with each other there).

BTW, I have seen people claim wakes matter, but that would not be true for first detection. By definition, the observer on say, a BB, would be sighting the TOP of the sub, and the rest would be hull down. The wake is the most "hull down" part of all, and would be invisible. The only mitigating factor is platform stability and optics quality. I think that smoke and increased cross section will always win out for the sub, however.

tater

[Hitman]

I assume from the way you posted it's some kind of rehashed discussion that has happened.

LOL well none that has involved me personally , but anyway it certainly has been subject of much discussion. In the end, realism is a too slippery term, so I prefer to go for the exprience or gameplay style I expect after having readed many books on the subject.Real or not? I don't care, and I find it pointless to argue about it, I for one certainly am not interested in the discussion, but in improving the game to suit my taste .

What's evident to me is that a sub that can follow a convoy only seeing tip of the masts over the horizon -before radar of course- has a challenge and an interesting gameplay there, (And one who fits what you can read on the subject, f.e. in the U-Boat commander's handbook ) while the sub who is playing russian roulette with the other ships in the game is not giving a satisfactory gameplay from my point of view. Am I right or wrong in historic reality terms? Honestly, I don't care

[momo55]

What about those airplaines battleships ..heavy cruisers etc. carry with them ?
Wouldn't a task force have at least alway's one in the air to recon the direct area by daylight?

What was there use in RL at that time ?

( sry for my basic english .)

[leovampire]

Originally Posted by momo55

What about those airplaines battleships ..heavy cruisers etc. carry with them ?
Wouldn't a task force have at least alway's one in the air to recon the direct area by daylight?

What was there use in RL at that time ?

( sry for my basic english .)

That should have them just like you would for the carrier's. Checked in the musium to see how many they had and what ship's then added them to those ship's.

But they only seem to use them once you or any enemy has been detected or if there is an attack on a task force they will bomb the area they suspect your in.

I sugested that for Duciums in T.M. but he said there were enough plane's in the game to deal with.

[tater]

The USN always flew ASW CAP off of CVs from the earliest days of the war (easy to check in Lundstrom). This is possible because they can take of and land while underway. The IJN seems to not have done this, at least not as much. Their ready CAP was usually fighters (sensible), but since they frequently had no, or bad, radios, they'd not be much use for ASW (they also carried no bombs).

As for floats planes, that's tricky as well. If they expected combat, sure, they'd cat off the floats, but the problem with this is recovery. The CA (or BB) has to stop to pick them up, which leaves them vulnerable to subs. SH4 can't really deal with this aspect of flight ops (it doesn't deal with flight ops for CVs well, at all, either—not just on a compulsive accuracy level, but in terms of what you see as a player. You'd simply not ever see so many planes buzzing around, if they were airborne off a CV, it would be because they were going someplace to attack).

Personally, I'm using a mod that uses cloned planes with VERY short range for the CVs, and only has 1 or 2 per CV. For the IJN even this is likely overkill.

I think for the most part, you'd only see BB floats in anticipation of combat as gun control spotters (I believe this was their purpose in IJN doctrine). The specialized CAs like Tone and her sisters (later Mogami) might have been a different matter. They clearly were used to fly search patterns for the enemy. There's the rub, though. The whole of IJN doctrine revolved around attacking Fleet units. ASW was considered "defensive", so they'd likely not "squander" floats on ASW patrol—they'd be holding them so that when they caught word of the enemy, they'd be ready to go.

My best guess would be that you shouldn;t see CA floats on ASW patrol, ever, or at least very very very rarely.

tater

[leovampire]

Originally Posted by tater

The USN always flew ASW CAP off of CVs from the earliest days of the war (easy to check in Lundstrom). This is possible because they can take of and land while underway. The IJN seems to not have done this, at least not as much. Their ready CAP was usually fighters (sensible), but since they frequently had no, or bad, radios, they'd not be much use for ASW (they also carried no bombs).

As for floats planes, that's tricky as well. If they expected combat, sure, they'd cat off the floats, but the problem with this is recovery. The CA (or BB) has to stop to pick them up, which leaves them vulnerable to subs. SH4 can't really deal with this aspect of flight ops (it doesn't deal with flight ops for CVs well, at all, either—not just on a compulsive accuracy level, but in terms of what you see as a player. You'd simply not ever see so many planes buzzing around, if they were airborne off a CV, it would be because they were going someplace to attack).

Personally, I'm using a mod that uses cloned planes with VERY short range for the CVs, and only has 1 or 2 per CV. For the IJN even this is likely overkill.

I think for the most part, you'd only see BB floats in anticipation of combat as gun control spotters (I believe this was their purpose in IJN doctrine). The specialized CAs like Tone and her sisters (later Mogami) might have been a different matter. They clearly were used to fly search patterns for the enemy. There's the rub, though. The whole of IJN doctrine revolved around attacking Fleet units. ASW was considered "defensive", so they'd likely not "squander" floats on ASW patrol—they'd be holding them so that when they caught word of the enemy, they'd be ready to go.

My best guess would be that you shouldn;t see CA floats on ASW patrol, ever, or at least very very very rarely.

tater

Tater you know I respect your dedication to your work and persistant persute to realizme for the game and what you do.

But you are the most unyielding man I have ever met in my life without meeting!

It is your way or the highway without consideration to pepole's request to things they would like to see and use in their own game play that would allow you to touch more of the people in the comunity out there with your hard modding work.

BTW I found away for you to kill the light houses only in the game for your Realizm modding work if your interested in it. Data/Library Harbor_Kit.dat file node #2114 Generic light house open it up and put day and night intensity in the city light's R to 0 then go to the node particle generator properties and in bit map particles all 3 nodes of them put the creation rate to 0. That will kill all the light houses in the game for your black out you wanted for your mod work.

[tater]

Hey, I make gameplay compromises, too. In my airbase/airgroup mod I didn't completely eliminate the planes I just reduced their range so they'd stay on CAP (meaning over the fleet, which is where Combat Air Patrols take place), and I reduced the numbers hugely because with the tiny radius, they cover the area very effectively with almost no planes.

I think that in a campaign like RSRD (or the similar TROM elements in mine) one way is scripted planes. You could actually have them spawn in, fly around, then the TF can stop, and they come back and despawn.

It all becomes compromise at some point, the question is where

tater

[leovampire]

Originally Posted by tater

Hey, I make gameplay compromises, too. In my airbase/airgroup mod I didn't completely eliminate the planes I just reduced their range so they'd stay on CAP (meaning over the fleet, which is where Combat Air Patrols take place), and I reduced the numbers hugely because with the tiny radius, they cover the area very effectively with almost no planes.

I think that in a campaign like RSRD (or the similar TROM elements in mine) one way is scripted planes. You could actually have them spawn in, fly around, then the TF can stop, and they come back and despawn.

It all becomes compromise at some point, the question is where

tater

BTW I found away for you to kill the light houses only in the game for your Realizm modding work if your interested in it. Data/Library Harbor_Kit.dat file node #2114 Generic light house open it up and put day and night intensity in the city light's R to 0 then go to the node particle generator properties and in bit map particles all 3 nodes of them put the creation rate to 0. That will kill all the light houses in the game for your black out you wanted for your mod work.

[tater]

Cool.

Thanks, leo.

<S>

tater

[momo55]

Thank you Tater and Leo for the quick and comprehensive (for me) repley about those floatplanes.

[tater]

One reason to redo the aircraft visual spotting is that I plan on actually placing all the planes by hand in my campaign at some point. I'll likely then drop the airstrike % very low so that the planes on the air bases are reactive. Meaning a pseudo-random patrol planes that fly waypoints. If they spot you, they can not only attack, but they'll phone home, and the nearby airfield can launch planes to attack you.

Then ASW patrol would be concentrated in the sea lanes, etc.

tater

[leovampire]

Originally Posted by momo55

Thank you Tater and Leo for the quick and comprehensive (for me) repley about those floatplanes.

In the CFG file for the ship that has the float plane's under the ship's main info add this.

[AirGroup 1]
StartDate=19380101
EndDate=19451231
Squadron1Class=FSF1M
Squadron1No=2

Just change the Squadron1No=?? to what ever number of plane's they are supose to have.

[tater]

Leo, you gave me an idea (gotta love how I OT my own thread, lol)

The planes from CV act one way, they divide up all (some?) of the planes into a circle at max range, and fly silly ASW patrol with all of them all the time. Get within 100 miles of a CV, and it's a mess. Unrealistic, and makes attack impossible.

The planes on a CA, OTOH, act in a different way, they REACT to detection, launch (spawn) and attack, right?

Arguably, the float planes behave more like the CV planes should.

So my idea.

Make a CA with an airgroup of a few CV planes. Not all 80, they'd never use the whole hanger deck full. Just 3 kates, 3 vals or something. Dump all the CV airgroups to 1 or maybe 2 un-bombed zeros. Range dropped to 40km or so.

Only use the new CA as an escort for CVs.

So the CV planes fly CAP, and if they spot you, only then do the CV planes launch since the CA planes follow different spawning rules.

I can test to see if made up unit types behave like CAs in this respect, too. Cause if you make the 'CV escort Cruiser" a type 17, for example, it, one, won't randomly appear on generic CA calls. Two, won't show up as a new type in the rec manual.

Alternately, change a CV to a CA type number and it will act like a CA.



Best of both worlds, it's not like you see the planes taking off.

tater