Can This Be A Work Around For The 8 KM Visibility?

[wabos43]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Sounds good Jungman. Can't wait for the results, please tell us the values so I can stick them into my file and run them by Beery before RUb 1.43 is out.

Can you confirm the sources on those receivers? Perhaps that's a theoretical range, and in practice it didn't work out to that much?

Yeah that was me, the information I posted in the main forum was this:

Metox: 8 km for ASV I and ASV II radar but not able to detect ASV III and above
Borkum: 20 km capable of detecting ASV III and above
Naxos: 40 km capable of detecting ASV III and above
Tunis: 60 km capable of detecting all ASV models


The above comes from "Type VII: Uboats" by Robert Stern and THE U-BOAT: The Evolution and Technical History of German Submarines
by Eberhard Rossler, so I think the above figures are pretty accurate. Judging by other literature, if the U Boat had the necessary equipment to detect the emissions then there was sufficient time to submerge. Which currently isn't working in the current model. I dont really know how to change these values, but concerning the snorkel problems being detected it seems to me that at the same time the RWR systems need to be changed also.

The range for the Metox depended on the angle that the plane approched from and also the skill of the operator, remember too that it couldn't pick up ASV III at all.

The ranges are the ones given for practical purposes not theoretical. Provided the equipment was installed in the U Boat there was always sufficient time to dive to safety, the problem was that not all radar emissions mean't that you had been detected, so it was up to the operator to determine if the signal was becoming stronger, i.e the aircraft is making a vector towards you. Another issue of course was that RWR equipment in u boats was difficult to maintain and prone to fail, if it did then you were a sitting duck. But make no mistake having RWR was an absolute lifesaver in most situations for a u boat, BUT it did mean that the u boat was now in an entirely defensive frame of mind, i.e picking up signals and diving is fine (you can read many accounts from 1943 where a u boat would dive 20-30 times a night), but if there are so many aircraft patrolling as by 1944 then the uboat cannot spend any significant time on the surface.[/quote]

[Jace11]

Jungman, have you reversed the 180 to 360 changes in your radar mod. I am worried that what you have done is enable radar to search underwater....

Example below, the maxELEV for sonar is 100 and MIN is 90 so it is a beam below horizon. If you havent reversed changes, radar can detect underwater objects...

here is a grapic about changing maxele cause i can't explain well in words...

one of the reasons i can;t type very well is I've been on the beer too, Leffe beer (strong stufF_) from belgium or france.... wheaty...

when I asked for it in bar once, i asked for a pint and they looked at me like I was an idiot, "we only sell it in half pints sir" probably cause its 6.6%, I like the litre bottles though cause they open like champaign... pop!!!

[Laffertytig]

any updates on the visibility issues? have we given up on those?

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Laffertytig

any updates on the visibility issues? have we given up on those?

Crew visibility has been cracked. Visual visibility is unlikely to be cracked (to more than Manuel's 10km), unless some marvelous discovery happens in Scene.dat, but that's beyond anything I could personally come up with there.

[Duke of Earl]

@CC... by Crew Visibility, do you mean unlocking the camera angles in Camera.dat for the Crew Stations?... if so, can you unlock the camera angles for the Periscope Seat station?....cause that is the ONLY crew station that's still locked up...

As for Manuel's mod for the Fog values in Scene.dat (both Surface Fog and Underwater Fog), I'm having a lot of trouble understanding the hex values that Manuel has highlighted in Scene.dat file...

Are they squared float numbers converted into hex values or what?... I can convert the existing hex values into float point, but they make no sense to me at all... so, I'm not sure what float numbers have to be converted and then inserted as the new hex values to move the Surface Fog back... like shown in Manuel's photos...

Mabybe someone can post something to clear up this issue so that us homegrown hex editors can get it right?

Cordialement, Duke of Earl

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Duke of Earl

CC... by Crew Visibility, do you mean unlocking the camera angles in Camera.dat for the Crew Stations?... if so, can you unlock the camera angles for the Periscope Seat station?....cause that is the ONLY crew station that's still locked up...

No, no, this is all purely about visual range outside, as in, seeing ships through binoculars at any more than 8-10km. We know how to get the crew to do it, but not you. Objects aren't rendered beyond that, but are still tracked.

As for your Camera mod suggestion - I noticed it from before. I've just been 'hiding' from that project a little bit because I've been preoccupied with finishing RUb 1.43 stuff.
Update on that soon

[Duke of Earl]

@CC... well, if you mean the edits to the Sensors.dat file to increase visual range with Binocs, I've been keepin up with that and making the appropriate changes... not too much trouble since the hex decimal - float point conversions make sense... but, the Scene.dat conversions are a still a mystery...

Cordialement, Duke of Earl

[Manuel Ortega]

For the 'FogDistances' value I don't know what kind of data is, too. Maybe a possible enum?
Other values are simple floats, but I don't know what units are.
The main fact is that they are changeable. I'm working on clip distance to get more visibility than the default 10 km.

One important value that I found was EarthRadius. This handles the curvature of the world. Yeah, the SH3 Earth isn't flat, everything is curved depending on this value. For example with a lower number, a ship at 7 km only shows smoke (or masts), and viceversa (for higher values). All except dynamic ocean, that remains always flat.

[Duke of Earl]

Thanks Manuel... I guess it will trial and error for me with the FogDistances Scene.dat values... they might be squared float, so a square root conversion might be necessary to understand the units.. it's anyone's guess right now...

Good luck on the clip distance.. and earth curvature..

Cordialement, Duke of Earl

[rulle34]

Hello!
Interesting to see you proffessionals work on this issue

Is there some file ready (or in beta) you can download for increasing the visibility?

Best wishes

/Rulle

[Jungman]

n/a

[Manuel Ortega]

Well, it seems that we will have visual sight increased soon.
- Clip distance is changeable now, I found it
- Clipping artifacts (Z-buffer fighting) have been reduced a lot

Just one thing remains: change the sky dome size. This is a hemi-sphere that cuts the horizon, and it does at 10 km from camera position. The problem is that every object behind the dome is not visible (but it is drawn).

One question: what is the visual range at sea in a clear day? Or better: what distance should I put to the camera sight to be coordinated with the AI sensors? If all goes as well as now, we could view ship smoke at 20 km (very very far, but we could see it), then the ship at about 10 km, like now.

[jasonb885]

Originally Posted by Manuel Ortega

...

One question: what is the visual range at sea in a clear day? Or better: what distance should I put to the camera sight to be coordinated with the AI sensors? If all goes as well as now, we could view ship smoke at 20 km (very very far, but we could see it), then the ship at about 10 km, like now.

My question would be, why was this apparently doable increased visual range locked?

I wonder if there wasn't a reason, perhaps a flaw in the game engine, which you will be unlocking as well?

[Manuel Ortega]

No idea, but I think it was due to CPU performance. The extra visibility eats about 15 % of total fps.

[Observer]

Originally Posted by Manuel Ortega

Well, it seems that we will have visual sight increased soon.
- Clip distance is changeable now, I found it
- Clipping artifacts (Z-buffer fighting) have been reduced a lot

Just one thing remains: change the sky dome size. This is a hemi-sphere that cuts the horizon, and it does at 10 km from camera position. The problem is that every object behind the dome is not visible (but it is drawn).

One question: what is the visual range at sea in a clear day? Or better: what distance should I put to the camera sight to be coordinated with the AI sensors? If all goes as well as now, we could view ship smoke at 20 km (very very far, but we could see it), then the ship at about 10 km, like now.

Much of it depends on the height of eye. On a submarine periscope (~50 ft height of eye) I have easily spotted large warships and merchants (100 - 150 ft mast head height) out to 12-15k yards even on a slightly hazy day. These are the masts mostly, not a dark smoke cloud. It's not hard for me to believe smoke from a coal fired boiler could be visible out to 10 nm on a clear day (little to no haze).