Is it me or the game is a little bit too easy?

[xXNightEagleXx]

Originally Posted by -Pv-

AI avoiding terrain seems to plague every sea based game I've ever played. I've always thought the main thing neglected is prediction- the AI knowing what's ahead a reasonable distance and taking corrective action in time for it to be effective.
-Pv-

For really unknown reasons since collision avoidance is used by many games in much more complex geometry than a simply ocean bottom

[xXNightEagleXx]

Originally Posted by -Pv-

AI avoiding terrain seems to plague every sea based game I've ever played. I've always thought the main thing neglected is prediction- the AI knowing what's ahead a reasonable distance and taking corrective action in time for it to be effective.
-Pv-

Originally Posted by Skwabie

^aye, 1 on 1 the AI is a joke, however the AI has many and player is always 1.

Unless you play in a very arcade way, you want to preserve the distance specially against multiple targets. if you collect all data possible, prepare the attack, preserve the distance and your stealth factor you will just snipe them one by one, since your torpedoes are infallible, sometime without any backfire. This stands for both surface and submarine AI.

I hope this game improve on this side otherwise this will easily become a game that will not hold me for too long.

I don't know maybe cold war submarine era conflicts would result in something like this, if so then it is not for me, or this game simply does somethings greatly and others poorly breaking the overall result (for me). I wasn't expecting any station simulation from this game but i was expecting a fully simulated warfare which at first doesn't seem to do.

[pccl]

The enemy subs use the same controls as the player, and during testing they had (and evidently still have) major issues with staying away from the terrain. So their vertical manuevers were removed, but this doesn't seem to have helped.

Interesting, does the enemy sub not have an idea as to how deep the floor is? If they do, I can't imagine staying away would be too difficult....

Also, I've had a few enemy subs (I think trying to evade my torpedos) dive way deep then sinking themselves, presumably from implosion... Is that a part of the whole "major issue staying away from terrain" thing?

Either way, that's a real big shame.... vertical maneuvering is a huge part of evading torpedoes, without the ability to do that enemy submarines are sitting ducks unless they can outrun your torps

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by xXNightEagleXx

I mean unless you fall into the obvious fixed wing bug (you can see that its patrol path falls always on the spot right above your sub, too much coincidence) the AI doesn't seem to do much to escape from my torpedoes.

Sometimes, I think that too. However, I'm also careful in what I'm wishing for. If the enemy submarines actually start pulling off evasions with consistent skill, they'll become nearly unsinkable because precise timing is an area where a AI with the correct algorithm can easily beat a human on (especially since you are ONE and can only threaten them from basically one direction at a time). Then people would start thinking whether they can beat the game at all if they need to throw 10 torpedoes to sink one sub, and there are usually three of them.

[subunit]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

Sometimes, I think that too. However, I'm also careful in what I'm wishing for. If the enemy submarines actually start pulling off evasions with consistent skill, they'll become nearly unsinkable because precise timing is an area where a AI with the correct algorithm can easily beat a human on (especially since you are ONE and can only threaten them from basically one direction at a time). Then people would start thinking whether they can beat the game at all if they need to throw 10 torpedoes to sink one sub, and there are usually three of them.

They're having difficulty getting AI subs not to plow into the seafloor, crush themselves, or surface inappropriately. I don't think there's much risk that they're going to write a perfect torpedo evasion algorithm that works against multiple independently guided weapons. It's definitely possible to threaten from multiple directions by bracketing the enemy and create "no-win" situations barring guidance failures.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by subunit

They're having difficulty getting AI subs not to plow into the seafloor, crush themselves, or surface inappropriately. I don't think there's much risk that they're going to write a perfect torpedo evasion algorithm that works against multiple independently guided weapons. It's definitely possible to threaten from multiple directions by bracketing the enemy and create "no-win" situations barring guidance failures.

Yes, in real life, you can set torpedoes to come from different directions. However, I don't dare do any of those "off-angle" tactics in Cold Waters ... the wires keep breaking. Everyone else tells me they don't really break that much, but somewhere between 25-50% of my wires break.

And yes, obviously they have to work on the algorithm. Right now it is buggy. But the day when they get rid of the bugs might be the day when it suddenly becomes "too perfect".

[Delgard]

I found the .txt files in /streamingassets/default and modified the systems as they are being discussed here for better accuracy. Being new, I also gave my current favorite boat (688i) a boost in ability. As I get used to the keys and GUI I get less immediate death.

I did save the original copies of the .txt (sensors, vessels, aircraft, etc.) into the "Override" folder that I made. I think that is the intent...let me know if I am incorrect in my understanding.

I am still having a little trouble controlling my torpedoes. I have made sure that my keypad is in Numlock mode, but still can't seem to control the torpedo like rising and dropping in depth, etc.

Anyway, being able to modify the system parameters lets me play at my skill level. I have been watching all the YouTube videos, but no one says what key they are actually pressing. They probably should not really have to, though.

Good luck!

[Julhelm]

Originally Posted by subunit

They're having difficulty getting AI subs not to plow into the seafloor, crush themselves, or surface inappropriately. I don't think there's much risk that they're going to write a perfect torpedo evasion algorithm that works against multiple independently guided weapons. It's definitely possible to threaten from multiple directions by bracketing the enemy and create "no-win" situations barring guidance failures.

Problem with AI is that you have to have appropriate tools to efficiently debug it. We now have such tools, so expect the AI to be overhauled.

[pccl]

that's great news Julhelm, looking forward to it!

[shipkiller1]

Here are some real world enhancements you could incorporate. These remarks are good for the 1980 to 1994 time frame.. Without getting into classification/security issues.

US boats need to be quieter. In real life, you could get really close with out being counter detected if your crew was good.

Engine order telegraph has five standard speeds:
1/3rd - 5kts
2/3rds - 10kts
Standard - 15kts
Full - 21kts approx.
Flank - as fast as you can go.

There is also back 1/3, 2/3, full. I do not think incorporating these backing bells would add much to game play.

In all but the quietest Soviets boats, you normally do not loose track at a 2/3rds bell (10 knots), sometimes even at a standard bell depending on the contact.

US Submarine detection ranges on surface ships are too short. The Fire Control Systems and its operators can generate a solution on a surface ship quickly. You almost always have a ballpark figure for the target speed based on blade rate and sonar will report this.

Towed array ranges are also too short, but I think that these are not utilized in the current version of the game.

Periscope depth starts around 68ft, depending on sea state. The top of the sail skims the surface at 50ft.

This is a BIG error: US Submarines can launch a torpedo at ANY speed.

Torpedo guidance wires are not a fragile as in the game. You can keep your wires at higher speeds.

If your wire is good, once a torpedo detects a contact or starts homing, it reports back contact range, course and speed as referenced from ownship. Thats not all but it is enough for a game simulation.

I posted this in another thread but I'll reiterate:
688's come in four (4) flights.

688-699 - Flt 1 (all first flights were upgraded to flt2's in their first major yard period)
700-718 - Flt 2
719-750 - Flt 3 (The first VLS boats)
751-773 - Flt 4 (also know as 688I's.)
No fairwater planes. Bow plane incorporated. FireControl and Sonar upgraded to BSY-1. An upgrade from BQQ-5. Incorporated a 6" countermeasure launcher in addition to the standard 3" launcher.
.
.
.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by shipkiller1

US boats need to be quieter. In real life, you could get really close with out being counter detected if your crew was good. In all but the quietest Soviets boats, you normally do not loose track at a 2/3rds bell (10 knots), sometimes even at a standard bell depending on the contact.

You can track many subs at 2/3rds bell. It depends on their speed of motion.

You are not the first person I see claiming both actual experience and that the American subs should have more acoustic advantage. Gameplay aside, having integrated testimonies from both the Soviet and Americans, the impression I get is that the Americans did have an acoustic advantage, and there are days and scenarios when they can indeed get very close. But overall they probably overestimated the degree of advantage they had - my post on this issue from 2011.

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

Yeah, read that book years back & it was an eye-opener. My perception is that the American superiority is more in the system more than the individual boats. Leaving aside the vague issue of training, SOSUS turned the undersea fight into one b/w a side with "AWACS" and a side without.

Another factor is that the Americans started really deploying rafting in their Permits in 1960 or so, while the Soviets started in 1972. That ensured a large glut of noisy Soviet submarines, and that pulled up the "national average" (and thus the American perception) of Soviet submarine noise and vice versa.

A third factor is that the Soviets seem to know when they are losing more than the West gives them credit for. In Blind Man's Bluff, there is a section where the Soviet Admiral let slip he was near USS Dace in a Victor I. Sontag tries to make it an issue of who trailed whom, and of course the American, which had an acoustical superiority, and who presumably waited in an ambush position, had the edge in that fight.

IMO, Sontag misses the point, which is that the Soviets had managed a counterdetection, even if it was late, and the Americans don't seem to know about it. Winning is better than losing, but in ASW warfare, managing to know when you've lost is a massive step up from not knowing, and not realizing that your victory is not quite complete is in itself a fair loss.

Towed array ranges are also too short, but I think that these are not utilized in the current version of the game.

They are not implemented in their final form, but they are there, simplified.

Periscope depth starts around 68ft, depending on sea state. The top of the sail skims the surface at 50ft.

As I understand it, it is 68 feet counts from the bottom of the sub, and this game seems to count from the "middle" of the boat.

This is a BIG error: US Submarines can launch a torpedo at ANY speed.

I'm actually inclined to believe the variant where they can't. When looking at a Soviet submarine, you may notice its tubes are at the top of the bow and fire straight out. There were actually proposals to move the tubes to the "American" position so the bow can go for a big spherical sonar (and trying to get as much aperture for the sonar as possible is undoubtedly important to the Soviets with their noisier subs and less advanced electronics). The current form is selected because the calculated speed limit was 11 knots. It is a Path Not Taken for the Soviets and AFAIK the American limit was higher (18 knots IIRC), probably due to improvments made in optimizing this mode of launch, but the Americans are not immune from hydrodynamics.

Torpedo guidance wires are not a fragile as in the game. You can keep your wires at higher speeds.

If your wire is good, once a torpedo detects a contact or starts homing, it reports back contact range, course and speed as referenced from ownship. Thats not all but it is enough for a game simulation.

I agree. Those stupid wires can break a little less. I've stopped my sub and they still break.

688-699 - Flt 1 (all first flights were upgraded to flt2's in their first major yard period)
700-718 - Flt 2.

Which are all the subs actually in the game.

[jenrick]

I'm actually inclined to believe the variant where they can't. When looking at a Soviet submarine, you may notice its tubes are at the top of the bow and fire straight out. There were actually proposals to move the tubes to the "American" position so the bow can go for a big spherical sonar (and trying to get as much aperture for the sonar as possible is undoubtedly important to the Soviets with their noisier subs and less advanced electronics). The current form is selected because the calculated speed limit was 11 knots. It is a Path Not Taken for the Soviets and AFAIK the American limit was higher (18 knots IIRC), probably due to improvments made in optimizing this mode of launch, but the Americans are not immune from hydrodynamics.

I'm intrigued with this here. What specifically are you referring to in reference to hydrodynamics? The movement of the water over the hull basically torquing the torpedo as it exits from the tube? I'm not a fluid engineer, but I'd be tempted to say that it wouldn't be difficult to have a strake, bump, etc to create an area of low pressure to allow the torpedo to exit the tube with no issue. Shoot even some carefully crafted irregularity at the tube opening when the door is opened could create the effect. It's not like the torpedo is exit the tube at 90 degree's, depending on the exact exit path it might have as little as 25" or so of surface area exposed to the drag of the water. If some fancy engineering can be brought into play the drag forces (and hence torque) would be minimal.

-Jenrick

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by jenrick

I'm intrigued with this here. What specifically are you referring to in reference to hydrodynamics? The movement of the water over the hull basically torquing the torpedo as it exits from the tube? I'm not a fluid engineer, but I'd be tempted to say that it wouldn't be difficult to have a strake, bump, etc to create an area of low pressure to allow the torpedo to exit the tube with no issue. Shoot even some carefully crafted irregularity at the tube opening when the door is opened could create the effect. It's not like the torpedo is exit the tube at 90 degree's, depending on the exact exit path it might have as little as 25" or so of surface area exposed to the drag of the water. If some fancy engineering can be brought into play the drag forces (and hence torque) would be minimal.

-Jenrick

I'm not going to pretend I'm any kind of hydrodynamics expert, but as I understand it that's basically it. They also discuss this issue over at Steam:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/541210...0934236744375/

It might be possible to reduce the effect with tricks and knowhow like you suggest, and in fact I suspect that's what happened because I'm quite sure the US tubes don't jam at over 11 knots like what the Soviets calculated. However, any area of low pressure through hydrodynamic would likely be relative - an attenuation of forces rather than an elimination.

Given the fact the Soviets were willing to make a huge design compromise over this issue, I'll say for the moment the burden of proof is on the side claiming the "No Limitation" variant.

[jenrick]

Well torpedo's are supported down their length via the lands of the torpedo tube. So it would only be the last few feet of the torpedo that would have any risk of wedging in the tube. I still would have a lot of doubts about a torpedo either wedging into the tube, or torquing against the tube enough that it damaged the doors and prevented the doors from closing after the torpedo left the tube. The door assembly has to be strong enough to handle the pressure at 500ft or more of depth.

If anything I'd figure the torpedo's would be designed to fail versus run the risk of taking a tube out of commission and possibly endangering the whole sub. Which considering most torpedoes can handle 30kts+ and again several hundred feet worth of water pressure, means it seems unlikely there's much of a risk. I'm not saying it couldn't ever happen, it just seems like a very low risk occurrence.

Some quick back math shows at 33 kts a worst case of approximately 54 PSI on the torpedo on down to .2 PSI for the pressure on the torpedo. Depending on the surface area of the torpedo that's exposed to the flow of water. Neither of those numbers would seem to present an unsolvable engineering problem.

I highly doubt there's going to be any published evidence supporting no max firing speed, as it's certainly a piece of information that I would consider of military value (if there is a max speed).

As an aside a much bigger game play issue to me is the breaking of torpedo wires. I know for instance the MK48 is set to 10% chance, but I routinely can fire 4, at 5 kts level bubble and rudder, and have one wire survive launch. Even then it's rare for it to last anything close to the full run of the fish. I'm curious if there's something a bit off with the their probability generator or if I just have REALLY bad luck with torpedo wires. I even tried an experiment of setting the wire break chance to 1% with the same result.


-Jenrick

[The Bandit]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

I'm not going to pretend I'm any kind of hydrodynamics expert, but as I understand it that's basically it. They also discuss this issue over at Steam:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/541210...0934236744375/

It might be possible to reduce the effect with tricks and knowhow like you suggest, and in fact I suspect that's what happened because I'm quite sure the US tubes don't jam at over 11 knots like what the Soviets calculated. However, any area of low pressure through hydrodynamic would likely be relative - an attenuation of forces rather than an elimination.

Given the fact the Soviets were willing to make a huge design compromise over this issue, I'll say for the moment the burden of proof is on the side claiming the "No Limitation" variant.

I'll have to do some digging but I recall reading about subs doing torpedo trials at full speed. If memory serves, speed limits are imposed on missile launches because the drag encountered at speed can do all sorts of funny things to the missile canister and spoil the launch.

On the topic of hydrodynamics, what is really bugging me lately is the frequency that ships which eat a Mk 37 can speed off into the night at 24 knots. My non-expert understanding is that speeding around with a hole in the bottom would almost surely end up tearing up whatever bulkheads survived in the damaged area. The Mk 37 doesn't have a very big warhead, but I think its safe to say that if one of them meets a ship, he's going to be out of the fight for a bit while he focuses on his continued survival.