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Currently, it appears that all units lose effectivly have their stealth rating when moving. Although this makes a lot of sense for most unit, it does not for submarines. In real naval combat, sumbarines a capable of sneaking a few kilometers from their target before attack them with torpedos. Submarines are capable doing this because, when running silent, the submarine only generates a fraction of the noice it would in cruise speed. In SR010, the closes thing to running silent is moving a low speed. Although low speed lowers the stealth rating (+/- 33%? )less than normal speed, this reduction is stealth is often enough to make them intantly detectable by surface ships with long visual range.

For exapme the California class Cruiser (with a visual range of 260km and a spotting strength of 270) is currently able to detect a Typhoon class Submarine (with a stealth of 230) running silent (slow speed) at 260 - (((230*0.66)/270)x260) = 114 km. Note that due to the AI not using silent movement but normal speed it becomes even worse (149 km). If you compare this value with a TYphoon that is not moving at all (39km), the contrast in stealth between a moving submarine and a non moving submarine, becomes very sharp.

This little example shows how severe the effects of movement are on stealth are. I there urge the developers to lower the stealth disadvantage for moving submarines which should allow them to remain undetected.

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not going forward eqeals to going backward

Has the Custom ROE -Stealth Approach- no effect....

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NO MORE NOISY FISH [unless they are green & furiously]
I HAVE STILL A FISH IN MY EAR

Stealth approach (= slow move mode) still loweres the stealth rating by +/- 33%. Which is exactly why I whan to lower for submarines

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not going forward eqeals to going backward

Well its funny I had a sub at top speed sneaking around in Iran waters with their units all over the beach. Too bad I didn't have tomahawks for em all.

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In war destroy everything even the livestock.

FYI, stealth when moving = stealth/2
stealth while shooting = stealth/2
stealth while moving and shooting = stealth/4


This sounds good, but have you tested it? Does a California Cruiser detect a moving Typhoon sub at 114km? And why is this wrong? What range should it detect it at?


Is this something you tested in game? If so, do you have the savegame? This would be very useful!!


Why do you think these effects are too severe? What should the ranges be? Why do you think the game's not currently balanced accurately?

If you have hard data on what we should be seeing for this encounter it would be very helpful, all of our information has been very vague offering no precise examples. Some of it we are left to guess on our own.

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com

Testing this is a kinda hard. How am I sopposed to test when a typhoon unit is spotted by the enemy when moving slowly in range of the cruiser? THe only way I'm spotted for sure is when the enemy starts attacking the sub. THe other way around, how to order an enemy typhoon to move in the visual range of a cruiser I control?

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not going forward eqeals to going backward

Welcome to the world of game development

Actually, this is why some of the in game cheats exist. Once you enable the cheats. <Ctrl+H> will cycle you through the players. Allunit will make it possible to build anything and Onedaybuild can have it done at the end of the day (This affects all players).

So, you can give one region the California, another the Typhoon. Switch between players to move the sub closer then switch back to know if it is seen. You can even do this with neutral players in open waters so that they don't sink your sub and ruin the test

If you get all of this set up, send me a copy of the savegame (or post it here so anyone can see and comment) and we can look into this further.

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com

Very well, I got some Real data now, and the result might be shoking to you!

For the test I made S-601 Rubis submarine patrol in a long strait line near the coast of corcica with a hex distance of 14km. The S-601 Rubis is a modern nuclear submarine a stealth rating of 235. I made sure both sides had a stable militairy expanses which would result in a stable efficency at 83%.

I then positioned a F-100 Alivaro de Bazan directly at the end of Rubis patrol path. The F-100 is a Modern Anti Subwarefare Frigate with a maximum detection range of 260km and a spotting strength of 270.
I made sure the F-100 was the only vesel capable of detecting the submarine. I then perforem 4 test blocks for each speed setting (slow, normal, fast and maximum speed) and each test was repeated 4 times to compensate for any randomness behaivior. For each sample, O measured the distance between the moment the F-100 detected the Rubin

Test 1, Slow speed;
- sample 1: 8 hexes
- sample 2: 8 hexes
- sample 3: 8 hexes
- sample 4: 8 hexes

Test 2, Normal Speed
- sample 1: 7 hexes
- sample 2: 7 hexes
- sample 3: 7 hexes
- sample 4: 7 hexes

Test 3, Fast Speed
- sample 1: 8 hexes
- sample 2: 8 hexes
- sample 3: 8 hexes
- sample 4: 8 hexes

Test 4, Maximum Speed
- sample 1: 8 hexes
- sample 2: 8,5 hexes
- sample 3: 9 hexes
- sample 4: 10 hexes

Now we can make the following observation looking at the Raw data. Slow speed is according to this test, less stealthy than Normal speed. THis is a real suprize since this is suposed to be the equivalent for Silent running. A possible explanation might be that due to the very low speed the Sub travels at slow speed, the Frigate has more time to detected the sub. Durring the test I noticed that the scanning trength fluctuated a certain frequency. Because the SUb traveled very slow, the Frigate scanning spere refreshed itself fast enough to make the sub detected faster than it would at normal speed.

THe second intresting observation we can make it that at Fast speed, the sub is only detected one hex earlier than normal speed. THis is quite good if you consider the increase in speed.

In the final test we can observe an intresting phenominon. The Submarines becomes easier to spot after time progesed. When looking at the sub efficency, I noticed that its effecincy behaved in a similar way. The more time the submarine travels, the lower it effeciency went. At the 10 hexes detection range, the Submarines effecincy was down to 50%. It appears as effeciency has a large effect on the ability to remain stealthed.

Now let us compare the measured data with what we inticipated. First interpert the data we measured:

7 hexes equates to 7x14=89km
8 hexes equates to 8x14=112km
9 hexes equates to 9x14=126km
10 hexes equates to 10x14=140

Now bases on information published on these forum I had anticipated that I would have been able to detect the submarine at normal speed at 260-(((235x0.5)/270)x260)=149km . Comparing this value to what we actualy detected, we can conclude the my calculation was wrong for normal speed. However, for higher speeds it appears that the detection range I anticipated start to look at what I measured. It Seams that the assumtion of a fixed 50% reduction is all wrong. THis test prove that effeciency has a very large effect on stealth, I'm assuming the same thing also applies to detection strength. However, that still doesn't explain why the Sub, running in silent mode (slow) was equaly hard to detect as the same submarine traveling at fast speed. Seams to me that it would have been more relaistic that a submarine traveling silent should also harder to detect. I realy hope I'm wrong, ot this is a Bug which should be fixed I think.

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not going forward eqeals to going backward

I'll need to read this probably 2-3 more times to be sure I've caught all the details but this is an EXCELLENT test! Do you have the savegame for it?

One thing I would have suggested is to not leave the sub patrolling. As you found out, units constantly in action loose efficiency. Also, units moving at higher speeds loose efficiency. It would have been even better to leave the sub at 20 hexes out and with time paused tell it move to the hex where the frigate is stationed. Then switch to the other player and run time slow until you spot the sub. Pause time and check the distance. If you saved before starting, you could reload, change the move speed and test again.

FYI, to help measure distance in the game, I suggest opening the side panels. (Ctrl+Shift+T) There is a measuring tool for hex selected to hex inspected (moused over).

If you can get me the savegame I will figure out if it is the spotting strength of the frigate or the stealth of the sub that needs to be changed and I will adjust it accordingly to get the desired results. Once we get this done, we can use these values as guidelines for altering any of the other unit values.

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com

Yes, I have the save game, If you like I will send it to you when I can.

About the effeciency of the sub while patroling, I noticed it was fairy stable, it only became a problem at very high speed as my test demonstrated.

About modifying the frigate Spotting strength , or steath rating of submarine, I discovered that it is really hard. Lowering the spotting strength of the Frigate by 20 points, did not have any visable effect whatsoever. Increasing the stealth rating of the submarine isn't an option either since there is simply no room. The only way I was able to get any significant effects is after I lowered the spotting strength of the firigate by 40 points. Howver, the problem with modification is that it would make non moving submarines with a stealth of higher than 220, undetectable by this frigate. For my mod, I see this as seperation of anti submarine tasks. While this frigate serves as a long range Anti sub weapons platform, Other ships with a lower detection range, but higher detection strength have to fullfil, the sub hunting role. that way, teamwork is more important, which should improve gameplay.

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not going forward eqeals to going backward

You're beginning to understand what I have to go through

When you can send me the savegame (please compress the file before sending, something like Winzip) I will look at it further and may get George to help me out as well. Obviously we can look at things beyond just the spreadsheet if some modifications are needed to the game engine to support this.

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com

I vote -

No, i like subs the way they are now.I dont feel the detection ranges are that bad.



I also have been able to sneak subs alot of places, like right thru the entire coastline of an enemy.
They make excellent scouts .

If a change was to be made, personally id like it to be made to the enemy ships AI's.
I would like them to patrol their coasts,make it harder for my subs to get in and out.

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This post approved by Tkobo:Official Rabble Rouser of the United Yahoos
Chuckle TM

Thanks I think most of the changes we're looking at are +/- one to two hexes, nothing major.


Ship AI is a little harder (and more time consuming) to adjust. If I'm sent a controlled test and know what range I'm trying to get, I only need ~1-2 hours of time to have new values tested in most cases.

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com

Sneaking around coast lines is not pertivcular the main objective of attack submarines. Ever tried to sneak an attack submarine up to a missile cruiser within torpedo range? While in the real world this is possible, you can forget about it in this game. If submarines were as detectable as in this game, navies wouldn't spend billiouns to produce them.

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not going forward eqeals to going backward

Well, no one has tried to sneak a sub up to a cruiser in about 60 years so you're trusting the ppl making the sub to be accurate in their descriptions of stealthy they are in real life. I don't really believe that a US sub could sneak up on a US ship very well but that is a technology face off that you never see.

I've got a few savegames about this and have looked into some of the balance and would agree that we don't have it quite right, but I'm not sure we're as far off as you might think. I'm currenlty waiting for George to look at some controlled tests and report back, then I'll be able to try some new values to see if we can improve on this.

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com