[REL] Harder Enemy Escorts- Better Sensors

Hi everyone. Thanks for the constructive comments. Please don't ever think that I don't want people's opinions regarding my mods (except castorp155). I also agree with Beery (a great modder) and others here that harder doesn't mean more realistic. But unfortunately, we have only two options in modding escorts... either they detect us, attack and probably damage us or they don't detect us and we don't get attacked. This is really important for people to understand. We cannot mod the AI behavior in SH3 and SH4 because it is hard-coded. So we have to change sensor settings instead. It's kind of a black and white thing. Finding the grey area for AI escort attacks based on sensor detection is almost impossible without access to the AI behavior files. But there are other things I am considering besides changing AI sensor settings... such as reducing depth charge damage blast radius. This way, the sub can still be attacked but the possibility of taking damage from a direct hit is greatly reduced.

Regarding castorp155, I feel that he hasn't contributed anything useful to my threads. All he does is criticize and pick and pick about how my mods are not realistic enough in his opinion. He has had nothing positive or useful to contribute besides his know-it-all attitude. I think he is just a troll trying to stir up trouble. That is why I said 'go away'.

Kakemann, do any of your library files have back-ups files in them? If yes, you have to delete or move them to a different folder. Renaming them isn't good enough. The game will still use the renamed file. I have tested this mod a lot and it always works for me.

[FAdmiral]

I remember in SH2 and SH3 that the players had these same problems
and if I recall, they were corrected in some mods back then. If these
games are that much alike, the modding shouldn't be that much different.
Of course, escorts during the war got better than they were in the beginning
so time has a lot to do with it also....

JIM

[castorp345]

Originally Posted by nvdrifter

Regarding castorp155, I feel that he hasn't contributed anything useful to my threads. All he does is criticize and pick and pick about how my mods are not realistic enough in his opinion. He has had nothing positive or useful to contribute besides his know-it-all attitude. I think he is just a troll trying to stir up trouble. That is why I said 'go away'.

yeah...
asking questions and trying to get some discussion going about improving the sim is being a "troll" and "trying to stir up trouble"...


give it a rest please (pm would undoubtedly be oh-so-much-more appropriate for these shananigans) and come back to reality.

CCIP said:

What I think offends nvdrifter and others here is the nature of your comments. You're trying to discredit nvdrifter and whatever procedures he might've used in coming up with the mod

well frankly i think drifter does a much better job of discrediting himself with this sort of juvenile behavior than i ever could bring to bear on him, but no i never intended to bring any discredit to drifter's efforts...

over and out.

Originally Posted by castorp345

yeah...
asking questions and trying to get some discussion going about improving the sim is being a "troll" and "trying to stir up trouble"...


give it a rest please (pm would undoubtedly be oh-so-much-more appropriate for these shananigans) and come back to reality.

I am ignoring all of your posts from now on.

Originally Posted by FAdmiral

I remember in SH2 and SH3 that the players had these same problems
and if I recall, they were corrected in some mods back then. If these
games are that much alike, the modding shouldn't be that much different.
Of course, escorts during the war got better than they were in the beginning
so time has a lot to do with it also....

JIM

The individual sensors carried on each ship can also be modded, but I didn't change those settings in this mod. Maybe someone could later for better results. :hmm:

[clayton]

Originally Posted by nvdrifter

Hi everyone. Thanks for the constructive comments. Please don't ever think that I don't want people's opinions regarding my mods (except castorp155). I also agree with Beery (a great modder) and others here that harder doesn't mean more realistic. But unfortunately, we have only two options in modding escorts... either they detect us, attack and probably damage us or they don't detect us and we don't get attacked. This is really important for people to understand. We cannot mod the AI behavior in SH3 and SH4 because it is hard-coded. So we have to change sensor settings instead. It's kind of a black and white thing. Finding the grey area for AI escort attacks based on sensor detection is almost impossible without access to the AI behavior files. But there are other things I am considering besides changing AI sensor settings... such as reducing depth charge damage blast radius. This way, the sub can still be attacked but the possibility of taking damage from a direct hit is greatly reduced.

Regarding castorp155, I feel that he hasn't contributed anything useful to my threads. All he does is criticize and pick and pick about how my mods are not realistic enough in his opinion. He has had nothing positive or useful to contribute besides his know-it-all attitude. I think he is just a troll trying to stir up trouble. That is why I said 'go away'.

Kakemann, do any of your library files have back-ups files in them? If yes, you have to delete or move them to a different folder. Renaming them isn't good enough. The game will still use the renamed file. I have tested this mod a lot and it always works for me.

Well said, though I wish we could all get along.

Castorp155, I'm an a$$hole, but I'm a consistant one, not a sneaky one! That being said, I think when these guys hear I really like something, they know I mean it - with no hidden agenda.

Nvdrifter: I noticed something with my Guardfish patrol. I'm using stock 1.1 and I just inserted an agent off the coast of Guam. Afterword, I planned on getting a distance away to send a radio message (status report) to see if I get a mission change. I ran into a large convoy, actually I came up from behind it and got some hard RADAR contacts! The kind where each individual ship was displayed on the map, though no visual sightings. I attempted to send a contact report, though I did not get a sent message response, immediatley 3 destroyers turned my way before I had a visual. BTW, crystal clear afternoon! I know, but I wanted to see what would happened. I went to 300 ft at 2 knots and didn't hit a thermal layer. They are still coming up on me when I stopped it to check Subsim. I'll let you know how the attack went as soon as I go back to it!

[clayton]

Ok! So, as soon as the destroyers came into range I crashed dive and went to 300 ft. Rigged for silent running, speed to 2 knots and I turned to the South with them at 180 degrees. The destroyers seemed to go to the spot were I dived and dropped three sets of depth charges. They didn't ping at all! After the charges they raced back to their large convoy which was navigating the straight between Guam and the island just north of it. Now, if their attempt was to keep me down then they were successful. I couldn't catch up after I surfaced, plus my new patrol zone was the Carolinas in the opposite direction anyway. The year was 43 and I was in the Guardfish, a Gato sub! Though I didn't hit a thermal at that depth, I must of been silent enough not to get picked up. Remember, I was a good distace away when I dived, so I gained some distance by the time they got to their last visual of me. Very plausible! Since it was March 43, I'm not sure as to their ASDIC capabilities, but you would think one of the three would have it! All in all fairly accurate though easy. I'm more vexed by aircraft, aircraft that I'm not picking up on RADAR now, though earlier during the patrol, around Wake island, I was. A bug perhaps! All this with just version 1.1

[Beery]

Originally Posted by nvdrifter

unfortunately, we have only two options in modding escorts... either they detect us, attack and probably damage us or they don't detect us and we don't get attacked.

Very true. This was the case in SH3 too. The trick is to tweak what we can and make the experience of being attacked, the end result of an attack, and career survivability all seem as reasonable as possible. It's a really tricky balancing act and each player has different expectations - whether it's a realistic looking career or an exciting and tense game of cat and mouse in every patrol - so it's impossible to please everyone and often the modmaker's task is a thankless one.

[kakemann]

Originally Posted by nvdrifter

Kakemann, do any of your library files have back-ups files in them? If yes, you have to delete or move them to a different folder. Renaming them isn't good enough. The game will still use the renamed file. I have tested this mod a lot and it always works for me.

Thanks for your help!

I'll try to uninstall the game and check that all files were removed, and reinstall.

Do you guys get more displayed than just the round circle around destroyers - like the original version with this triangle like indicator - which shows were it hears better?

[kakemann]

Originally Posted by kakemann

Hello again!

Just want to ask - again

I have tried this mod som more - but I still can't figure it out.
I would really appreciate some feedback because I would love to get this mod working.

I still don't get destroyers after me even when running at flank speed just ahead of them at depth 18 metres.

Did I install it wrong or why isn't it working for me?

I downloaded the three files and overwrited the old ones in the correct directories.

I attached a picture to show what i mean.

In the original game - if I'm dealing with a destroyer for instance i get more than just one big round circle around the diamond. This shows which angles the destroyer "hears" better. Just wondering if the mod changes the destroyer so it loses the ability to hear underwater since it doesn't have these extra indicators to show the angles where it does or does not hear.

Or maybe i'm installing wrong.

Look here:


As you see on this pic the Fubuki destroyer only has one large circle around - and it seems to me that is why it acts like it is deaf? By the way - all the other destroyers on this picture are crusing at slow speed, and doesn't seem to hear anything ahead of them.

Does anyone else have issues like this? or can someone give me some advice!

Thanks for everything, and sorry for all the questions!

Originally Posted by nvdrifter

Kakemann, do any of your library files have back-ups files in them? If yes, you have to delete or move them to a different folder. Renaming them isn't good enough. The game will still use the renamed file. I have tested this mod a lot and it always works for me.

I tried to uninstall the whole game, made sure all files were deleted (the savegames as well), ran a CClean, reinstalled the game, patched to 1.1 and copied over the three files, but with the same outcome..
The destroyers seemed deaf and the navigation menu showed destroyer diamonds as seen on picture above with just one large circle around (just like crusiers,merchants or battleships).

I did a little experiment and only copied back the original AIsensors.dat, and kept the two other files provided files in this thread and i saw that the destroyers got the old navigation "look" back, see picture:


But the sensors seemed like in the original game without this "harder enemy escorts - mod". I guess the important file is the AI sensors file.

Just wondering if someone else has similar experiences. I can't understand what I have done wrong. It seems to me like it could be a small error in the AI sensors.dat file.

Maybe nvdrifter remembers where and how to look in this file?

Thanks a lot!
This game has great potential!

Sweet. I decided was a bit easy when I went into the battle of Coral sea, and had to haul ass to get a good shot at the carrier, so I ran on the surface at flank speed to get into range. I nearly ran over a destroyer, and took out both fleet carriers without being noticed.

[kakemann]

Originally Posted by Mechman

Sweet. I decided was a bit easy when I went into the battle of Coral sea, and had to haul ass to get a good shot at the carrier, so I ran on the surface at flank speed to get into range. I nearly ran over a destroyer, and took out both fleet carriers without being noticed.

You tried this mod?
The idea is great! Just have to make it work

[CCIP]

One thing I'm starting to note is something funky going on with visual detection. It seems that enemy destroyers, even in daytime, can get within firing range of me without my crew even noticing them. I suspect this is TC-related as well, but still - somewhat annoying.

Did you by chance increase enemy visual efficiency here?

Originally Posted by CCIP

One thing I'm starting to note is something funky going on with visual detection. It seems that enemy destroyers, even in daytime, can get within firing range of me without my crew even noticing them. I suspect this is TC-related as well, but still - somewhat annoying.

Did you by chance increase enemy visual efficiency here?

I set visual efficiencies for both sub ai and enemy ai based on GWX numbers. Both were changed. I will look into it.

[Ducimus]

out of curiousity, did you use GWX's visual settings that reside in the sensors.dat in gwx? if so, i would change it back to stock settings.

Reason is they have a "vampire night vision" bug they've tried to fix there, and its highly dependant on waves and light variables. The sum of it is, its a little too much of a nerf at times. Results in a broken record watch crew and/or watch crew unable to spot things that you can CLEARLY see with your own eyes. I dumped it when i saw my watch crew coudlnt spot a convoy at 6K-7K meters in a 7-8 kt wind at dusk.