Destroyers Discussion what were you guys on?

[lurker_hlb3]

is this a valid formula

P noise = Noise Factor * (RPM current / RPM prag - 1)

if so where did you get it ?

[Ducimus]

All im going to say, is if i had a dime everytime i heard someone on a message board that says he knows the games developer, or is a game devloper, id be a rich man.

[Der Teddy Bar]

Originally Posted by lurker_hlb3

is this a valid formula

P noise = Noise Factor * (RPM current / RPM prag - 1)

if so where did you get it ?

http://www.mistari.com.au/SHIII/SHII...r_Formulas.htm. It was given to me by the Dev Team along with other fomulas that have been prviously posted for everyone to use

[lurker_hlb3]

is the 0.40 RPM prag value a constant or is define some where within the data files of the software ?

[lurker_hlb3]

Originally Posted by lurker_hlb3

is the 0.40 RPM prag value a constant or is define some where within the data files of the software ?

Disregard, I re-read your orginal post and see where the .40 comes from

[Observer]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Thats what i was wondering, i just didnt ask because i didnt want to be a smart ass.

In that thread i focused primarly on the AI's ablility to HEAR me. My thoughts have always been, the problem isnt pin point drops, the problem is getting the AI to not be so damn passive in behavior. Most of the AI is very passive, or in other words dumb. (exception being crew rating 4). I thought if i could increase their chance to be aware of my presence they would respond appropriately. And its a feasible thought, as the stock noise/wave factors - they are relatively deaf. Think about it, how often have you been detected by how much noise your making unless you deliberatly shove your boat into flank speed with an escort nearby?

To sum their behavior, i beleive is in need of work, but hardcoded. To use an old phrase, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". But then again. im on crack, and i don't have a clue. Must be all this peyote im smoking :rotfl:

Yes. This is the problem. It's also very difficult to sort out and get it right. To be blunt, this portion of the code is horrible. It makes it almost impossible for the escorts to ever be effective. Oh how I've tried...oh how I've tried.

[VonHelsching]

Originally Posted by Der Teddy Bar

While this post is critical of the work and by default the authors, it is not meant to be anything more than looking at the facts in a hope to fix the escort detection for real this time and to highlight the issue of improper procedure & testing in the hopes that next time there will not again be thousands of hours wasted.
Cheers,

Teddy Bär

Your writing style does not help your stated purpose (ie to fix the escort detection). You are not writing this in order to achieve this purpose with the help of the community. I am sure that you have already in mind of a proposed solution for this problem, or at least you are very close in solving it. I think you just want to attract attention, using what I perceive as negative advertising.

caveat lector
.
.
caveat emptor

[Der Teddy Bar]

It is funny, as I read that as a straight forward statement of fact with no derogative undertones. You are also mistaken on the “just want to attract attention, using what I perceive as negative advertising�. It was a sincere statement regarding lost hours, as there is nothing worse when moding.

That said, I made my post regarding the previous ‘solutions’ as I wanted to get the ball rolling again regarding the AI sensor issue that for all intensive purposes has not resolved as I have demonstrated.

I re-opened this subject as I feel that I need the help of those people who put so much time and effort into the previous investigation.

The issue with the current Hydrophone configuration is that is does not scale well and often is an either or. The design is poorly thought out, in that the speed of the u-boat is not considered, only the ordered speed and the silent running works better than a clingon cloaking device.

On top of all that it does not scale well. So fix it for one situation and it is either uber or dumbed down in another.

NYGM have some ideas that we want to put forward as a possible solution and seek the advice and input of the people who had worked on this previously.

OK, onto the basic idea.

As noted, we cannot add or change the Sim.cfg file apart from the variables.

What we have been considering is to add additional hydrophone settings to the AI_Sensor.dat and then on top of that then add additional nodes to the escorts to place the additional hydrophones.

The additional hydrophones would then be specifically designed via the min/max range for the height, bearing, elevation & sensitivity of the sensor to meet a specific purpose.

For example, there would be several short range hydrophone sensors to cover several different situations. They would in some part overlap while also leaving gaps, again, this is a general approach that needs to be discussed and mapped out.

More specifically, to accommodate the Silent Running’s clingon cloaking ability the Hydrophone would be configured to detect a silent running u-boat at a range of 500 metres when the weather conditions are at a 10 metre per second wind. When the weather is glassy smooth then the maximum range would be limited by the new Hydrophones as described below.

We are looking at having a setup of Short Range Hydrophone and Long Range Hydrophone, or SRH & LRH.

The 1st SRH would have a configuration to hear at periscope depth to say 20 metres to a range of 1500 metres. The 2nd SRH would have a configuration as to be under the 1st SRH and would at the max range of 1500 metres leave a gap between the two, but in close, say to 500 metres they would overlap. The 3rd SRH would then essentially point very much in a downward direction and have a maximum range of 150 metres.

The issue is then the LRH will have the ability to hear a silent running u-boat at max range of 5000+ metres. So to combat this we would again add extra hydrophones & nodes to the escort and through shaping of the sensor limit its ability to hear. For example, put the LRH so that it hears only from 25 degree from dead ahead to say 35 degrees and to have a shallow arc so as to not detect the player in close.

Cheers.

[mikaelanderlund]

I have a dream, I have a dream GW+NYGM. We shall overcome

Mikael

[Dowly]

Funny to see, that after GW and NYGM decided to go 'independent', there´s been ALOT of crap flying everywhere.

After Kpt. Lehmann´s statement, there have started to be those "My mod is better than yours" type of threads.

I do think that Teddy should´ve though about the 'look' of his writings on this thread.

For example:

"They show a total lack of proper testing and understanding of moding."

Even a 2-year old can take that as an 'attack'.

[gouldjg]

My long speech :rotfl: :rotfl:

Whilst I think the slating of people’s time and efforts is a little out of order on your part, I do think that some points you observed hold valid and if you are going to produce better, I am happy to help with what I got from the DD thread. I am not going into the "I only wanted to provoke topic discussion" its lame and half of those to its directed are not here to defend anyway.

Ok people should never expect to see eye to eye when it comes to realism and gameplay but to me, publicly highlighting other modders flaws is what makes players stop playing the game period because they start to feel that the game is broke period and will never be fixed. As we know, many things are coming and are still to come, 12 months after release. Lets not start giving the perception that the game is broke and others are making it worse. Bad community spirit imho.



CB always stated he was not interested in releasing a claimed fix or claiming that he cracked the DD code. He just went with what was giving him more of a challenge compared to stock. People just asked him for his version and he therefore provided and provided ample warning about his views.

You will note when reading the full thread that I was not really into all the dramatic changes concerned with sim.cfg. After feeling like I was losing that argument and admittingly knowing I really had not enough knowledge of the historical aspects of DD sensors as well as the time to spend testing the campaign etc, I politely dropped out into the background but always keep my own little setup as to what I think adds to my personal gameplay a bit like what the other members did..

I cannot speak for GW team as I only did part time and left the modding scene in the middle of development, RL took over for a while. I do know that they followed the DD discussion closely and went with the best info to date. I think many players quite like it so they may not have been on anything except a view to pleasing the majority with what info was available.

You can very well say "what were they on?" but lets put credit where credit was due, things were discovered by every member and although it was no DEV team super piece of work, the whole thread was about discovery. At the time there was no alternative, no future patches, No Dev team contact. The shame is that it did split in the end and too many people were happy to accept the proposals because it did make their game a little more challenging for a while.

1. Vanilla game had Uber active sonar lock that in some cases was impossible to evade. Jungman

2. 1.4b patch bought the pin point DC, I think many players will notice that there is now enough time to evade DC as long as one was not lazy or unlucky when DD went abeam so steps were made good from the DD thread. Redwine, Myself

3. Hydrophone ranges were Just too toned down IMHO, (has always been my main nitpick) I just add 5000 meters to each Hydrophone and make all sensitivity = 0.03 which seemed to match what sim cfg prefered. That way I cannot really fly in from the side without running silent and in some cases having to manually adjust speed to 1 knot also. My view is I should always get head and be prepared or take the shot and then have to evade because that was the gamble then and it is now IMO. The others took the different road.

4. Despite whatever the lost contact time was, the DD just fail to do any kind of Historical search patterns and just rush back to convoy. Even the hunter groups do this. Why the devs did not include this is why we all have different views and to some extent why people think the DD are dumb. I hope Sh4 make sure that DD do have a least a couple of search patterns and historical pinning tactics but will they really have players pinned for 11 hours etc. In the meantime, my best solution is to use the chaos file and randomise the above as it then adds a sense of human factors into what will become with any sensor model, a predictable game. I am holding onto the chaos file for a while because I need to determine sound base mods to which to place randomisation. Each maker mod need to produce what they believe suits the majority of their players without forcing them to use SH3 commander. I understand that, so I am trying to help GW get a Ship model up.




No what I gotta ask is this and please do not be offended by the questions,

What are you proposing (in English please)?

Are you not just suggesting yet another wild method that to some extent will only be similar to what CB discovered which is, the game is broke, we have to cheat the DD sensors to get variety and challenge?

What help do you need?

Is your proposal going to add variety, and actually produce a better DD?

And on a personal note, will I be able to randomise it without ruining a mathematical absolute formular that leaves little options for those of us whom isn’t so hardcore?

More importantly, Is this going to be a NYGM only product or will others be able to participate and benefit from it and have the right to attempt to tone it down on the realism aspect should it seem to detract from its equal share of gameplay.

I lay my cards on the table at this point,

I have a 100% interest ultimately with a future Chaos file used in conjunction with Sh3 commander.

I have diddled with bits of the game so much that I see the only way I will ever get a lasting buzz, is to have a slight "not knowing what to expect feeling but expect the worse" Chaos file will do that for me.

I need to be able to choose a sound base mod

I need to choose a well balanced ship damage model capable of being randomised up or down according to my realism taste.

I need to get a decent air mod, again capable of being randomised to make me think.

I need a sub mod that although should not leak as much as a fixed number solution provides (Hollywood), it should also not take the chance away for a exciting battle of repair and pannic. I.e. a randomised sub model.

I need a middle ground DD setting that again can be randomised to have lucky/unlucky feel and add a sense that a human may be in the DD.

Later as more doors open = more options i.e. a randomised secondary explosion mod.

All this is possible but we now have two teams whom do not see eye to eye = I have to wait longer

I really think a bit of humble pie on both sides is needed and then at last we can bash ideas of eachother to save hours and hours of testing time which is ultimately forcing players to wait more.

If thrown to the community and You and Kpt agree to disagree but decide to share knowledge and possibly modding ideas and inter mod options, I think we will get a really happy community. Is that too impossible to ask?

[HawkerT]

Herr Teddy Bar und Herr Observer!

I urge you deeply and sincerely to grab hold of your NYGM gem and follow the suggestions put forth above by Herr Gouldjg aka. Mr. Chaos. In my humble opinion Mr. Chaos is onto something really worth a second thought ... times 10 ...

The very few posts I have done on this forum have all been cheering for the following:

A) Please keep NYGM focussed (and I feel that you are) on improving the 'hard' parts of SHIII i.e. the core of the game engine. So engine modules like damage models, munitions effect, sensors etc. should fall into that category.

B) Now this is the subtle part ... please do A) so that it is prepared for randomization using the SH Cmdr concept created by JScones and for which Herr Hemisent aka. Mr. Thermal and Mr. Chaos have provided proff of concept.

A) and B) will in combination with sound and visuals from other mods really be something to move SHIII towards the skies.

You are doing a marvellous job, please give the thoughts from Mr. Chaos a second look!

All the best
Frans

[Observer]

Randomization is possible. It's entirely possible using whatever tool or method is available, in this case SH3 Commander serves the purpose extremely well. The DAT file will be the same; you will just have to define the appropriate hex offsets in order to adjust the values.

The goal of this project is to create a basic setup. Random modifications can then be applied (i.e. the chaos mods using SH3 Commander) as desired to the basic setup. In fact this works very well with the only drawback being the need to reload.

What we are looking for is community input on how best to build this thing. This isn't intended to be a flame fest, rather a recognition we need to go back to the drawing board and fundamentally rethink how we approach the escort sensor problem, and we are asking for help because this is such a big job. This is a task of innovation - blow away the old way of thinking about the problem (i.e. simple adjustments to the sim.cfg and the AI_Sensors.dat files) - turn it on its head and think about it from a fresh, new perspective.

Tonight I will post some conceptual images of what these hydrophone arcs and areas might look like. I think that will help clarify some of the confusion around this proposed solution. As with many other mods there will be some tradeoffs, but I think the benefits of this solution will outweigh the negative factors.

And just to be clear, let's put this topic back on track with constructive ideas rather than silly, non-constructive bickering. I for one refuse to participate in any form of flame fest. If this topic is not sufficient for the purpose of constructive ideas, then I will create a new one that is.

[gouldjg]

I am all ears and look forward to seeing your proposals Observer .

1. Can you clone a number of complete new sensors cos if so, then yes, you will have options to making each ship class very much like its intended real life version which is a good thing in my book.

2. I think this was discussed on the DD thread or in a pm from someone.

3. Another idea discussed but not tested was that the cargo ships should also have a seperate hydrophones installed but set on very short ranges hopefully to ensure DD reactions once torped. One of the hardcode problems was the DD sometimes did and sometimes did not react to torps being fired. The Idea was to look for ways to ensure they became nosey after a ship was hit. Someone wanted to also place another visual sensor on cargo ships and have it set to -10 but again at very close range so ships could always see a torp in its last few hundred meteres. None of use were however capable of that sort of stuff then. Can you do that?

Food for thought, it certainly is,

[Ishmael]

I was on these 2:

USS Schofield DEG/FFG-3 Served aboard from 3/73-3/75





USS Elmer Montgomery FF-1082 Served aboard from 11/75-9/78