Back in the water!

[MarkShot]

Every one of those purple lines is a two minutes LOB on the TA sent from the SONAR station.

Your goal is to maneuver your sub and use the art of TMA as fast as possible to localize an enemy before he who does the same to you. Getting the first "accurate" shot is a huge advantage.

[MarkShot]

For SC 1.08: SCXIIc/SCU is the ultimate mod. It probably hasn't been updated since 2004. SCU allows you to play other subs beyond the original three. Sub Change Utility

For DW 1.04: LWAMI 3.11 it probably hasn't been updated since 2010/2011. There are a couple of competing mods, but this will play all the content out there. I don't see much content or documentation for the other couple of mods. Also, one of them is mainly being developed by Russian speakers which is one language I don't know.

[MarkShot]

For the two games, there are probably about 200-300 scenarios with various random elements available.

The scenario editor is very powerful and well documented, but to create anything of real value and sophistications requires serious work.

Like any game, only you will know if the subject matter is of interest. But if you want first person post WII naval play (not task force commander like Harpoon), then you don't have many options.

[LongBlade]

Yes, it helps, but to be honest I'm more interested in your AARs than the inside workings of these games. Make no mistake - I would *love* to be as knowledgeable about these games as you and to be able to play them. But I've got other things on my plate. I do look forward to the AAR and you guys are absolutely welcome and encouraged to discuss these types of things here. I'm afraid I won't be reading every word of the discussion.

[MarkShot]

But part of being able to enjoy an AAR is to understand the context like: attrition vs maneuver, defense in depth, open and closed terrain, combined arms, rolling up a line, ...

Of course, a good AAR should introduce concepts and illustrate them.

I was trying to showcase 1830PC. But for SC and DW, I read RSR and am just sharing my passing fling until I box my PC. I am very dissappointed that on subsim (a whole site dedicated to ...), you cannot even get anyone to respond to such a thread. So, I post here. At least, it is a novelty for most.

The World is enamored with graphics. I've actual turned off the 3D in these games. I am playing from the stations. If I was playing WWII sub sims, I wouldn't be in the 3D or watching from the scope. As soon as I fired, I would be headed deep and disengaging. Sound will tell you if you hit and sank your targets. Sticking around to admire your handiwork is a good way to get killed.

[Nefaro]

I noticed the differences in TMA between SC and DW, but never really checked it out.  The dot stack was always so clean in SC but DW seemed to be a real pain in the butt to get lined up.  At least now I know to ignore the LOBs during the turn (on the TA), but we already did that since it was the only sensible solution to that oddity in the first place.  Now that we know that's how it's supposed to be displayed, I'm glad they put it in for reality purposes. 

That makes me scratch my head in wonder as to why the torpedo speed changes were removed in the sequel.  Doesn't make sense.  Then again, I got the impression that Sonalysts still had a few things they wanted to clean up but had moved on to other (more lucrative?) military projects.

Sorry about all the Simspeak, guys.  As Mark says, there hasn't been much talk about DW on the Subsim forum in awhile and Mark is finding oddities that I didn't know existed so it's kinda interesting (for me anyways) hearing about them.

[MarkShot]

I also created 2 sets of SONAR/TMA practice missions for SC and DW. It's all the same scenario with one contact at 5NM to 60NM in 5NM increments. So, you practice 45min distant solutions on faint TA NB contacts to 4 min solutions on near contacts using SPHERE and TA triangulation. The scenarios allow selecting any playable platform.

What I learned today is the three leg "Z" works well for trace contacts, but range accuracy is vastly increased by coming up from 5KTS to 12-15KTS. Probably reasonable, since no surface warship is going to hear you at 40NM. Otherwise, you are not going to hear any sub that far away. More likely you'll pick up a sub at 5-10NM. Anyway, you may have to shoot first and get the solution later.

[Nefaro]

I recall having issues actuallying seeing trace contacts on the sonar displays, back when I used a CRT years ago.   I had to crank up the Gamma to get the faint lines to stand out.  That's why they added a config file option for Gamma adjustment in an update later.  It's not so bad since using an LCD because they're naturally brighter.   

It can still be a pain, though, because the faint ones show as dark black lines (darker black than the background) as opposed to a brighter green one - at least initially.  They also don't even show on the display at all with the most faint contacts & only mousing over the areas to see if you get a 'hit' will find them.  But the AI can sure find those non-existant lines just fine (and fast too!).   At least this gives the AI a bit of a leg-up against a player, I suppose.

[MarkShot]

Here is what I did.  Works so much better than cranking up brightness.  I use a utility which can adjust the brightness and many other things via a command line.  I have a gaming keyboard with programmable keys.  Unlike many games, for SC/DW, I only have 2 keys defined.  One sets the LCD to super bright (light up the room) and the other back to the default.

So, I only boost brightness when I go over to the NB station in the 688/Seawolf, when scanning to spot faint and inverted frequency lines.  I don't think brightness makes any difference in the Akula/Kilo NB station.

I am looking forward to giving my LWAMI mod a work out.  Like ... pick up a quiet Kilo with just a faint NB trace.  Work out the solution.  Set a torp to run out with max RTE above the layer.  Dive below the layer where my tracker loses the Kilo and fire the torp at a quiet 10KTS.  Come back above the layer for the tracker to regain it.  Run the torp as close as I can get.  Then if close enough or it is detected (watching the Kilo on DEMON), enable the torp having it pop up above the layer and accelerate to 55KTS.

Gee ... it sounds so sexy, I am almost tempted to just make a little scenario to try it!  :)

[MarkShot]

I see what you said about the effectiveness of the TSAMs.  Blowing off all VLS tubes and nothing gets through.  Sort of makes it useless that I can detect and establish the position of a SAG at 50NM when my standoff weapon is such a let down.

Also, I have been watching the LWAMI AI evade torpedo attacks.  It is awfully effective.  It looks to me that an accurately targeted single torp doesn't have good odds unless wire guided.  As it steers into the active CM and by the time it blows through the target has side stepped.  I need to try some new stuff.

(a)  A spread of two active torps ... maybe with a mile between them.  I used to for SC know the width of the seeker cone.  Do you have any idea?

(b)  An active torp followed by a passive maybe be about a two minutes.  The first one will get duped, but the second follow the noise.  (I haven't noticed LWAMI firing off passive decoys.  I thought stock DW would fire one of each.  Actually, myself I've been loading up on active CMs.)

[MarkShot]

Well, some more dueling.

A spread isn't working.  They get sucked into the CMs despite the bracket.  The conventional wisdom is to RTE at 75% range.  But maybe that is where the problem lies.  Maybe to RTE at range or 120% of range along with a spread.  The idea is to not have the seeker head go active until after it has blown by the first set of CMs.

It really seems to be a conundrum of how to kill a sub with good sensors.  You cannot get close enough to shorten the range without being fired upon first.

Although I remember that evasion was improved in SCXIIc, but I don't recall the CMs being that attractive or the evasion AI being that nimble.  Subs seem very hard to kill with LWAMI even if you fire first.  Of course, I haven't tried playing the Akula with Shkval or SUBROCs.  I imagine after the first volley if the target survived you could close to Shkval range.

[MarkShot]

It's funny, I thought evasion might be harder in DW than SC, since the rate of turn is slower than SC.  Also, you cannot take rudder control in DW, since the boat doesn't halt turning instantly on "rudder a midships".

---

I also have to add I don't understand with the whole SHOW TRUTH thing why they permit the player to see his torps via the FIRE CONTROL and NAV Stations when they are not wire guided.  This is something which has always bugged me.  You can deduce from the torp icon behavior if it is tracking.  That's fine if on the wire, as I imagine that the real thing must send data back down the wire to FIRE CONTROL.  However, you should have no idea other than the SONAR Station what your torps are doing if they are not on a wire.  From SONAR, you can see if they're tracking if the waterfall track merges with the contact.  Also, you can see a miss and you see a snake pattern on the waterfall as well.

[MarkShot]

I've been thinking about the DW messy TMA problem:  It's those corrupted TA LOB lines that make TMA hard especially when trying for a 12-16 minute solution versus 45 minutes.

Okay, before starting the turn, you simply discard the tracker.  Then, you reassign a tracker to the new leg after the TA has straightened out.  This should eliminated corrupted LOB from TMA.

I am going to try this tomorrow.

[Bison]

Mark I have no idea what you are talking about, but I dig it when you get into a game.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

But if you're using a towed array, how much longer does it take for the array to straighten out after you've made your turn?