Sorry but Diesel-Electric recharge wows continue!

[BeirutDude]

So this is a scenario I am working on and the diesel boats are set to recharge batteries at 60% in transit and 20% on defensive. Several hours into the scenario the Norwegian SSK Utstein's batteries are discharged in transit! Take a look at the file, the sub is under "Auto" and she is enroute to her patrol box, thus should have recharged at 60%. I have Version 1.14 Build 998.10. Picture in next post...

[BeirutDude]

Note she is discharged, under "Auto" control and just a few hours into the scenario!

[TyphoonFr]

Sprint and drift is activated:
Your submarine goes back well recharging his battery with periscopic depth since it is at 66ft.
The problem comes from the speed of your submarine, it is 10kts Flank and it consumes more than it recharges. This is due to the order sprint and drift:
Status: On plotted Course (Sprinting)
Your submarine is charging at the same time as its sprint, the only solution at the moment is to disable "Sprint and drift"

[BeirutDude]

Then WHY have a "Doctrine" for recharging batteries if the AI is just going to ignore it [&:]. Right now you have a situation where that boat is useless and vulnerable to any attack. As the scenario designer, I set it up so the boat would have a very healthy reserve of battery, 60% on transit (and would attempt recharge with 20% when engaged), BUT the "Sprint and Drift" AI overrides that making one or both pieces of code, IMHO, useless! There was no strategic or tactical reason for that boat to run down its batteries down to zero in transit!!!!!!! Sorry but there IS a problem with the code if it does that! The Sprint and Drift AI needs to respect the doctrine (unless under attack which was NOT the case here).

[DWReese]

From my experience, a sub must travel extremely slow (a constant, under 5 kts)in order to re-charge its batteries. Any faster and it will take 'forever' to re-charge the batteries. The diesel subs are incredibly slow. They pretty much need to be in the vicinity of where they are going to be used when the fighting starts, otherwise, they are kind of worthless.

I do think that it works as designed, though.

Doug

[BeirutDude]

So I guess I could set "Sprint and Drift" at a waypoint but as I usually teleport submarines I try to keep any waypoints to a minimum to not encumber the course with a set waypoint. I think that would reduce the utility of the telepointing by constricting the sub to a set course just to receive a "Sprint and Drift" order. Again, I don't feel it's working right because then why have "Doctrine?" A real sub commander would reduce speed and recharge so they have a sufficient battery reserve, not run it down to zero no matter what!

[TyphoonFr]

I'm not sure that it works as expected, and fortunately, it makes the events random. Certainly from the inexperienced commander.
 
From time to time, when the diesel submarines, when they go up to periscopic depth do not think about decreasing the speeds to recharge their batteries. So, these ones are emptied.
This can happen when the submarine travels to Full or Flank, either because of manual tuning, Sprint and Drift or during an offensive engagement by the sub.

Then when the batteries are empty the submarine goes back to Creep and recharges his battery.
But he can also stay at 0 knts and there he will leave only when his batteries are full. If he gets attacked before, he will go into Status Engaged Defensive, take a course opposite to the threat, but stay at 0Kts and. (See Backup Test # 1)
Of course manual control is still possible but if you switch between Manual / Auto, you will see that the sub has lost its automatic capacity and retains the manual settings in auto mode.
Positive point, the Sub has the stop, which recharges its battery, can engage the targets that pass in range and RTB when conditions 'Withdraw & Redeploy' of his doctrine will be met (more ammo). The RTB status unblocks the Sub this one goes to the base.

If you look at your diesel sub, the Ustein S302, you will notice that even without its battery problems, it will take a while before you get to its patrol zone. It's even possible that it will not get there before the end of the scenario.
The Sub patrol mission encounter the same problems as the planes, he engage the targets before joining their patrol zone. Your sub will take an intercept course that depends on its speed and data of the target (Cape and speed) .With a slow Sub and a fast target with an opposite heading, the interception points can be thousands of km away from the other side of the earth. Sub commanders know that the earth is round, he will want to go around the world to intercept their target and will therefore take a course opposite the target.
The best in your case is to assign the Sub to his mission when he reaches his patrol zone.

Another problem you may encounter; if you assign a Base to a Sub, at the RTB, it may take an opposite direction and your crew is not ready to see their family again. (See Backup Test # 2).

[BeirutDude]

My response to all of the above is very simple, then why have/set a "Doctrine" when the A/I is going to arbitrarily override it?

[AlexGGGG]

BeirutDude,

AI does not override doctrines arbitrarily. It is just the set of rules which is very complex, and there are combinations of doctrines which are forbidden. As number of doctrines grow, number of interactions between these explodes, and so does the size of documentation, and so does human brain demand.

Currently, sprint and drift overrides charging.
Probably, the developers would change it so that charging overrides sprint and drift and this issue will be fixed.

Underlying problem is that submarine cannot charge when sprinting (diesel engines are not powerful enough).

[BeirutDude]

AlexGGGG the problem is in later playtests the Koblien boat in the NordKapp Box did the same thing and not under Sprint and Drift. Actually, when it was not engaged or under Sprint and Drift I manually set her for -65 feet and 5 knots and she promptly dove to -98 feet and 12 knots twice! Then the Utstein boat "in transit" was taken off Sprint and drift and ran the batteries down to zero anyway.

Look no matter what the settings are the bottom line on this is very simple, the A/I for whatever reason (other than actually being under active attack) is running the battery down to ZERO and then coming up to periscope depth, possibly at 0 knots to recharge and making the boat vulnerable, no actually a sitting duck, to attack.

So the only diesel electric skipper I have ever spoken to was the Captain of the USS Bonefish but if we find one that tells me what I just outlined above is standard practice on their boat I'll apologize. I'm just not convinced the A/I is working correctly under the circumstances I just outlined. How could it be? What real submarine skipper would do that?????

So on another topic, would you be willing to playtest the scenario for me as I'm working on it? I have a new policy on working on scenarios which is more modular. I work on one group, get it set and working (as close to what I want them to do as possible), playtest it and then add the next group/base. This one is about 2/3rds done, but the problem with Scenarios like Arctic or Med Tsunami (and this) is they get so large that playtesting when it is almost done is hard at that point and gets confusing. So I could use you eagle eyes during the development if your willing. If you're interested could you send me an E-mail we could talk off line.

al.sandrik@gmail.com

[BeirutDude]

OK here is a classic example of what I am talking about! I set the Kobbien to come up to periscope depth to recharge to keep the batteries as close to full charge as possible before engagement. The white message is telling me that Doctrine says she has to dive because of threat proximity (?????) closest contact is like 200 miles away? and then it comes up to periscope depth anyway! I am sorry there doesn't seem to be any reason as to how the Doctrine and A/I work together?????

[BeirutDude]

But now on the plus side, I took the Utstein out of the Sea Control Mission she was on, and put her in an inactive one dedicated just to her (that should activate when she reaches the mission box) and now she is automatically recharging in transit so thanks for that advice TyphoonFr! That seems to have worked and I will do that from now on for Diesel-electric's in transit.

[Grazyn]

Yes, you have to disable "dive when threat detected" otherwise it won't stay at periscope depth and won't recharge batteries if its ESM detects anything remotely threatening, regardless of recharging doctrines. It will still say periscope depth when you go in unit orders->throttle but you'll see that the depth isn't actually PD

[AlexGGGG]

It would probably be helpful if developers can put this information into a sub status. Aircraft have "Engaged offensive", or "Refuelling", and ships/subs already have "Sprinting"/"Drifting", so it would be great to have sub status of "Evading detection" so that we can easily understand what it is doing.

BeirutDude, I just sent you an email.

[Dimitris]

Okay, so currently the problem is....?