So whats wrong with escorts? They cant find me not matter what

[kakemann]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Can't comment on the issue - soon as I got the patch, I reinstalled nvdrifter's harder escorts mod and changed all escort AI skill levels to at least competent. :p All in all, no complaints there...

I had little luck with this one, edited myself two lines. And that was all it took to fix the poor DD's performance:

Go to your Ubisoft folder. Go to:

Data/Cfg/Sim.cfg

edit this file with notepad. If you are running WinVista you might have to copy the file to he desktop or something because of edit file permission settings.

Go to this part of the file:

[Hydrophone]
Detection time=1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=15 ;[kt]
Noise factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Thermal Layer Signal Attenuation=3.0 ;[>0],

Change Sensivity to 0.08 (forexample), and Thermal Layer Signal Attenuation to 2.0.

Save and overwrite the old file. Be sure to take backup!

The DD's will hear you with their hydrophones much better now, and the thermal layer will give you a little less protection against their sonar.

The problem with the mod CCIP mentions is that the hydrophone sensors have been changed to lower sensivity.

I did a lot of tests on this and found out that increasing a bit here will make the DDs more challenging!

Hope this is helpful!

[OddjobXL]

I turned back to Thunder Below! as it has several descriptions of convoy actions. It does seem some escorts are much, much, better than others. You'll have some that drop one depth charge and claim a kill regardless if there's any indication of success. Others that roll right over and inexplicably don't notice anything below them. Then there are the guys who just sit there and pound the hell out of anything that looks remotely suspicious even if it's nothing at all. Yet other captains are extremely methodical, professional, and practiced in teamwork. Japanese escorts were a very mixed bag and this is in '44 after they supposedly got good at it!

I found two descriptions of relatively conventional convoy encounters. In both cases they seem to just keep going but they may leave an escort or two behind to hunt the sub or guard damaged ships. The only instances you see groups sticking together and loitering seems to be if there are very important military ships that get hit like carriers. Then they'll hang tight and try to stabilize the situation before moving on.

The convoy commander of convoy Mo-Ma 07 had frigate 28 for his flagship. Mo-Ma 07 was the abbreviation for a convoy departing from Moji for Manilla. Moji was just inside the Inland Sea, close to the heavily mined Tsushima Strait between Kyushu and Korea. It's sheltered bay was a major assembly point for convoys to China and the southern war front.

Frigate 54 on the port bow of the convoy made sonar contact. "Sub sighted'" signals indicated a submarine was inside the convoy. "Emergency right turn!" was orderred as frigate 54 turned in to depth charge.

The convoy commander, maritime transportation commander #5, ordered frigate 8 alongside to shift his flag. This accomplished, he ordered frigate 28 (which had the best German sonar) and frigate 54 to stay and sink the sub and render necessary assistance to the damaged Miho Maru. The rest of the convoy sailed on.

And again, we see this behavior in another convoy:

With the loss of the most important ship, Anyo Maru. and the ammunition ship Shinyo Maru, the convoy turned northeastward toward the north Formosan ports.

And in this case the escorts didn't even try to go after the sub! One even plowed right overhead, so close they could hear the screws turning inside the Barb's hull. But he didn't drop anything.

Here's Fluckey talking about Japanese merchant convoys:

Normally Japanese convoys had a tendency to place their escorts ahead and broad on the bows, with a trailer escort astern. For a dark, moonless, night normal wolfpack tactics called for the pack to get ahead of the convoy for an attack on the surface. One packmate would then pounce from port or starboard. Attack completed, the next would attack from the opposite side. That completed, the last of the three would attack from either side depending on the reaction in the convoy. After a sub attacked she would make another end around and the proceedure would be repeated.

Sinking or damaged ships in the rear of a convoy should not have greatly affected the organization of a convoy. To the contrary, hitting the van ships caused pandemonium.

And this too sounds to me like the merchants don't stop and tend to hold formation as they keep moving. They might be ordered to speed up, if they can, or change course in formation. Or they might panic and scatter. But they keep moving.

[Ducimus]

How to unstupify the AI:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=111395

[NefariousKoel]

I've had the same problem in both 1.1 and 1.2 starting in '41. I have reinstalled 3 times to see if it helped.

The search patterns are usually great for them but it seems their passive sonar is deaf and most importantly... I've never heard anyactive sonar pings. I don't know if the thermal layer is like a wall or what but they should at least go active when getting close.

Here are a couple screenshots demonstrating the extent of the problem. They are 2 completely different circling passes by the destroyer.





I will try using one of the mods to improve things in the meantime.

[Lognoreng]

On one patrol o was totally hammered by their sensors.. *ping ping ping ping ping*. And there were 3 DD's total in the vicinity of the convoy i attacked. I thought i was dead for sure, however, even tho i was pinged and had my full side shown to the DD (Which had some engine problems i think, due to my torps ) That explains why it could not hurt me. But i reckon the other 2 DD's would be informed in a matter of seconds where i was. But they werent. So i could just cruise around in PsD with scope fully up without really being bothered at all.

[MikeJW]

I've not seen the merchants in a convoy stop but I've seen the DDs run the gamut from incompetent to good but even good they're not too much of a threat. IRL the Japanese DDs werent as good at ASW as the Brits, who were masters, but I think in SH4 they're just a little too tame. I know they wouldnt work a contact like the British who would keep a U-Boot down all day and night. Instead the Japanese would work it for at most 6-8 hours with a few exception. Jap DD skippers were notorious for claiming kills after a few runs. I'm not sure how sensitive there sonar should be to reflect this.