Best Detection System for Submarines?

[epicpantsryummy]

The bane and end of my last campagin was a relatively simple vehicle, the Simoon. To counter it, I build a submarine. It works all fine and dandy now, but the seemingly only detection system that works underwater is Sonar, and against an air target that isn't going to work to well. Do I have any options, or do I need to build something else?

[Silamon]

Radar buoy missiles would probably be the best bet, or you can make a small very fast drone with nothing but detection equipment with the intra ship transmitters (not sure exactly what they are called but it is something like that). The drone does not need weapons or armor, just make it fast and cheap.

[epicpantsryummy]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Radar buoy missiles would probably be the best bet, or you can make a small very fast drone with nothing but detection equipment with the intra ship transmitters (not sure exactly what they are called but it is something like that). The drone does not need weapons or armor, just make it fast and cheap.

Do radar missiles need to saty in the air, or do they work on the surface of the water? If they need to stay in the air, how does one go about doing that?

[Silamon]

I think they would work if they are floating on the surface, they are called buoys after all. I have never actually tried them myself though.

[Sabertoothproton]

I would use a variable thruster set to min thrust with a fuel tank along with a torpedo prop for the initial boost out of the water. In addition to being a detection source it is also a very effective missile decoy for VLS missiles

[DeciNinja]

Alternatively, you could make a sensor mast using blocks or pistons to poke whatever sensor you want above the water. It'll be essentially undetectable to surface sensors and can offer somewhat better detections than a radar buoy, but might get shot off by a stray shot. Overall, radar buoys are definately a better choice, but hey, its another option.

[Sarielia Stormr]

Both radar and sonar buoy both are great, but you can have sonar and wireless snooper on subs. Deployed sub-vehicle drones are actually how the real navies do this, so I think it's fair in game. Though I haven't done it personally, IR should work as well and has the advantage that it doesn't emit a signal to be detected. IR torpedos used to be a thing. You need the inter-vehicle transmitter to do the drones, AND they are detectable via wireless snooper I believe.

Secondly, on that note: alloy coat subs can help if they are small, do not use wireless on subs (nearly all campaign ships have snoopers), fuel engines vent below hull, don't use too many shields, etc. :D (heat sig, lots of ships especially the bigger ones in the game have IR detection then they lock you with laser trackers lol... ) Radar detection does work underwater to some extent, just shorter range depending on your depth/size etc -- though if YOU are underwater the devices disable themselves.

If you build a periscope type thing, make it alloy and angled like a diamond or it'll be enough for radar to lock you in many cases. You shouldn't need it though, torpedos are self-guiding with sonar and should lock something even if you fire it blind.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by Mindmaster:

If you build a periscope type thing, make it alloy and angled like a diamond or it'll be enough for radar to lock you in many cases. You shouldn't need it though, torpedos are self-guiding with sonar and should lock something even if you fire it blind.

The calculations for detection-range don't take slopes into account. No need for angles.

[Sarielia Stormr]

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Originally posted by Mindmaster:

If you build a periscope type thing, make it alloy and angled like a diamond or it'll be enough for radar to lock you in many cases. You shouldn't need it though, torpedos are self-guiding with sonar and should lock something even if you fire it blind.

The calculations for detection-range don't take slopes into account. No need for angles.

You still want to do it, even in that case, for speed. A 20 foot long mast is a pretty significant surface area - if it was all beams or poles I'm sure it'd shave a bunch of m/s off.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by Mindmaster:

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

The calculations for detection-range don't take slopes into account. No need for angles.

You still want to do it, even in that case, for speed. A 20 foot long mast is a pretty significant surface area - if it was all beams or poles I'm sure it'd shave a bunch of m/s off.

Periscopes on realistic designs would be extendable -> piston-mounted. Pistoned blocks don't generate drag.

[Sarielia Stormr]

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Originally posted by Mindmaster:

You still want to do it, even in that case, for speed. A 20 foot long mast is a pretty significant surface area - if it was all beams or poles I'm sure it'd shave a bunch of m/s off.

Periscopes on realistic designs would be extendable -> piston-mounted. Pistoned blocks don't generate drag.

Depends, it probably doesn't matter if it's "always up". :D

I'd still avoid it, you go from "perfect stealth" to "maybe stealth" and if you need more detection than a buoy the drone is still the best way. You can have a couple hundred resource speed drone doing all the detection and never risk the "really damn expensive" for its size sub. (Due to missile costs being INSANE.) Just due to the nature of how subs work in the game, they're going to be lightly armored if they're good. (AKA fast)

Unfortunately, I don't know if the telescopic pistons count as "metal" "alloy" or "nothing". I never use them because no matter what depth I am at it's somewhat random. (Usually sea skimming, but sometimes the sea floor is 30, sometimes it's 300, lol) The length of the telescopic piston is too short for serious subs anyway, if you ask me.

[Sabertoothproton]

Originally posted by Mindmaster:

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Periscopes on realistic designs would be extendable -> piston-mounted. Pistoned blocks don't generate drag.

Depends, it probably doesn't matter if it's "always up". :D

I'd still avoid it, you go from "perfect stealth" to "maybe stealth" and if you need more detection than a buoy the drone is still the best way. You can have a couple hundred resource speed drone doing all the detection and never risk the "really damn expensive" for its size sub. (Due to missile costs being INSANE.) Just due to the nature of how subs work in the game, they're going to be lightly armored if they're good. (AKA fast)

Unfortunately, I don't know if the telescopic pistons count as "metal" "alloy" or "nothing". I never use them because no matter what depth I am at it's somewhat random. (Usually sea skimming, but sometimes the sea floor is 30, sometimes it's 300, lol) The length of the telescopic piston is too short for serious subs anyway, if you ask me.

You are never going to have perfect stealth unless you alter the game config settings as all craft have a small level of autodetect already.
Also if your enemy is using a hitscan weapon like lasers they can easily toast your drone in seconds leaving your submarines totally blind. Not to mention that the AI mainframe alone is 400 resorce and GP processing cards are 200 a pop such a drone will probably be atleast 3-4k minimum, way more than the cost of a buoy launcher which would probably be around 2k.

[Sarielia Stormr]

Originally posted by sabertoothproton:

Originally posted by Mindmaster:

You are never going to have perfect stealth unless you alter the game config settings as all craft have a small level of autodetect already.
Also if your enemy is using a hitscan weapon like lasers they can easily toast your drone in seconds leaving your submarines totally blind. Not to mention that the AI mainframe alone is 400 resorce and GP processing cards are 200 a pop such a drone will probably be atleast 3-4k minimum, way more than the cost of a buoy launcher which would probably be around 2k.

I change the auto-detection settings in my games so stealth works and sensors are needed. The drone is a matter of economics, it's worth it once the RP cost of the sub goes 200k+ (which doesn't take much with all those torps and missiles :D). You drones need smoke like every other surface unit, no getting past that - though largely throughout the game laser enemies are rare. Even if you lose a 10k RP drone it's favorable to losing a 200+k sub, but you wouldn't have all the detection on the drone anyway. Anything with target prioritization will probably ignore the drone most of the time anyway. Subs need layered detection -- on an expensive sub it'd be buoy, drone, and systems on the sub itself. There is also nothing stopping you from using the intra-vehicle to gain detection from your surface ships as well, instead of using drones, and that often makes more sense because rarely would a sub be hunting alone. The drone is for a long-wolf type operation, but completely unnecessary in a fleet when you can just piggyback off their sensors.

So, the short of it is -- inter-vehicle makes the most sense in 99% of the cases. You can even make a sensor-less sub alloy hull in that case, which is basically immortal. :D As far as the counters game there is a counter for everything, and you can counter anything if you are dumping the RP to do it. But, it's just a matter of being ridiculous -- by the time you counter every single thing you spend 500k+ RP. :D Anyway, a speed drone with careful construction will be really durable and if it has smoke it's gonna last awhile even versus lasers. It can take damage and even be destroyed, you don't care you'll just respawn it. It only needs to last half the battle to be worth it, especially if what you are killing is using expensive weapons like lasers. :D Also, you can make it stay "close" to the sub and just repair tentacle the thing to death if it's dying that's your real problem. So, if you have tentacles on the drone and enough on the sub it's never going to die. But, that's kinda true of anything in the game , lol.

[Rampant Rabbit]

On the sub, I use sonar. For best stealth, passive sonar is probably best, and that also acts to detect incoming torpedos for anti-missile torps.Internally, I add wireless snoopers in the bow and stern. Never been sure if that helps triangulate an enemy, but just in case..

Then I use radar bouys. They don't have to be anything fancy, just bouy, bouyancy tanks and regulators so they hang around for longer. Add a couple of detectors and they'll find their way to the surface pretty fast. Adding propulsion to those means they'll try and act as missiles/torps and potentially kamikazi for no real gain. I tend to use medium launchers because they persist for longer before self-destructing.

Then if my sub has guns, I tend to add regular sensors to those simply so I can surface and pound pesky shore installations if I chose to. Underwater, they're generally pretty accurate as long as there's a few surviving radar bouys.

As for IR, that doesnt really work underwater given water's a very good IR absorber.

[m61a1]

I found that passive sensors and a snoop device work fine. I link everything manually so I don't worry about enemy snoopers. My biggest weakness is to active sonar in a side profile so there's that.