The Anti Anti Humming Bird Mod

[Der Teddy Bar]

The NYGM Anti Humming Bird mod is about removing the unrealistic hovering ability that was present with the u-boats in SHIII and that made for gamey tactics.
The crew of a u-boat, or submarine, were capable of trimming the boat to near neutral buoyancy. However, for all practical purposes hovering for any meaningful extended period of time was not possible. Hovering at periscope depth in anything other than calm waters was impossible.

It was practice to trim the boat for positive buoyancy, after all, that is where all the air is! This positive buoyancy would be done for a speed specified by the Captain or relevant officer.

The u-boat/submarine trim was something that needed constant attention and was an ongoing process of adjustments. Especially when changing depth.

NYGM initially through the use of an additional zone and a zones.cfg value were able to stop the unrealistic hovering by the u-boat.

We took this course as we were at that time unable to find a way to make the u-boat have positive buoyancy.

I am very happy with the NYGM Anti Humming Bird Mod in its current format. After using it for many months I feel that the game play benefits are immense and makes for a more realistic experience when submerged.

More realistic, but not 100% realistic. That would have you able to trim your boat to either a positive or negative buoyancy. That however is outside of what can be done in SHIII.

I have been playing with the Anti Anti Humming Bird for 2 weeks and we have decided not to use it for mainly game play reasons as well as time vs result.

The main game play reason is having a positive buoyancy will have a negative effect in some circumstances that we feel make this mod not worth pursuing.

Let me use these examples of where a player decides to stop while waiting for a convoy to approach or has damaged electric motors or batteries that stop him from moving forward.

NYGM Anti Humming Bird – While waiting for the convoy the player will slowly sink at 10 metres over 15 minutes. From periscope depth this will take nearly 3 to 4 hours to reach crush depth. So staying near the surface will not be that hard as this slow sink rate.

In the situation that your electric motors or batteries are damaged but you are not flooding, you will sink at the same slow rate. If you get to your crush depth you can always order an emergency blow. If you are lucky you will settle on the bottom of the ocean and manage your repairs and live to fight another day.


Anti Anti Humming Bird – While waiting for the convoy the player will slowly rise till you surface. The figures will be discussed shortly, for now I will use the same 10 metres in 15 minutes. In the case of the convoy, you will be in a simular situation as with the Anti Humming Bird Mod, just in the opposite direction. One downside is that you might surface and be detected.

In the situation that your electric motors or batteries are damaged but you are not flooding, you will rise at the same slow rate. While this sounds better, its not. You will rise up to the escorts and get shelled. Where as in real life the u-boat would have had it buoyancy adjusted to stop this from happening.

So with the Anti Humming Bird you have the option to surface by an emergency blow or sink to the bottom and try and last out the attack and make your repairs. Where as with the Anti Anti Humming Bird you have no choice, the only way is up.

I feel that the Anti Humming Bird wins hands down under this scenario.

The Anti Anti Humming Bird has been somewhat of a difficult child. In that to get the positive buoyancy reduced enough to enable the u-boat to maintain speed at 1 knots made the positive buoyancy so small as to be neutral. If the positive buoyancy is enough to have an impact, then you need speeds of ahead standard which is unrealistic.

The Anti Anti Humming Bird proves difficult to use because there is no way to control trim tanks in SH3, something that is necessary to ensure the boat does not broach and get detected

Also, from a basic ship handling perspective, you actually trim negative buoyant, and stern heavy when at periscope depth. This ensures the screw will stay in the water, and you won't be pulled to the surface by surface suction (the force between the upper flat part of the hull and the ocean surface). The surface suction force is very significant. As mentioned above, this is a critical area of ship handling, and since attacks must be conducted at PD in SH3, we chose to trim the boat as it would be for PD trips rather than how it would be during an evasion.


The NYGM Anti Humming Bird mod achieves it aim of keeping the player moving while allowing him/her to stop without undue penalty.

The NYGM Anti Humming Bird mod also allows the player to maintain depth at 1 knot, a realistic practice. This allows him to sneak away from the escorts.

The NYGM Anti Humming Bird works well and produces a realistic behaviour from the player.

This is why NYGM have decided to forgo the Anti Anti Humming Bird.

To get a positive bouyancy you need to adjust the MASS value from 0 to a figure just under the Displacement Surfaced value.

When 0 is used for MASS this means surfaced displacement is used instead.

Some example figures,
If I set the MASS for a Type IIa to 278, then the u-boat will need ahead 1/3 just to submerge! Don’t even worry about staying submerged at any speed other than that.

If I set the MASS for a Type IIa to 278.5, then the u-boat will need ahead slow just to submerge, but it is excessively long to do so. You also will need a speed of ahead slow (3 knots) just to stay submerged. So at speed less than 3 knots you will head towards the surface.


If I set the MASS for a Type VIIb to 752, then the u-boat will need ahead 1/3 just to submerge! Then it will be slightly off the ordered depth, so 20 metres equals 19. Then at 2 knots you will rise to 17 metres. Then at 1 knot the only way is up.

The larger the u-boat the more manageable the idea is.

The initial crash dives for the VIIB are the same though, but take 20 seconds longer to get to 80 metres, 2 minutes as compared to 1 minute 40 seconds.

To conclude, there are also some other side effects such as excessive bobbing when the wind speed increases. Yes this can be probably addressed somewhat with changing the wave stuff, but again, so much work to make this work with everything.

Anyway, it’s all here for everyone.

I must make it clear that many months ago Cmdr Gibs indicated that he knew how to do this. I have no reason to doubt him, so I am not claiming to be the first to make this discovery.

Bingo!
You finaly hit the nail on the head, well done.
After a lot of fiddel farting around I have it working just right.
I personaly would take the "Real Life Sub Tweak" over the "Anti - Humming Bird" Mod anyday (but then I'm bias). But the good thing is, we now have choices.

[Gammel]

Hello Cmdr Gibbs,
can you give a little more output about the "real life sub tweak" mod?
Or is there a thread somewhere here?
Thanks in advance!


(something tells me it is found around all the other unreleased stuff rotting on your hdd)

I have not released this yet since it will be just 1 part of a set of Real Life Tweaks that I'm currently doing. When they are all complete as a package then I'll release them. They all work hand in hand so to release just 1 part that requires the other parts is not advisable. Sorry.

However I can tell you that yes indeed all subs have a positive bouancey and do raise slowly at 2knts and under. So small busts of speed are required when a hard turn is made, but thats what they did any way when under DC attack, the ship passed, the DC's droped, sub sped up an changed course, then slowed down again to hide 1's more. All natural and correct.

[Gammel]

thank you! Looking forward to a release.
And please forgive the incorrect spelling of your name...

[THE_MASK]

I just started a new career in the med in 41 and the same thing is happening . When i dive and come pack to periscope depth i cannot get pack to 12 mts without going to at least 5 knots . The sub sinks like a stone unless doing at least 3 knots and at 1 or 2 knots just keeps sinking . Mods i have are NYGM VER 2 , NYGM Turn correction mod , NYGM vis mod . Cheers .

[Pkunzipper]

Sober, as stated elsewhere, your sub could have got some really minor flooding (under the % required by the engine to show it on the damage screen).

Try putting men in every compartment and secure from silent run for a small time.

I never had problem with NYGM 2.0 keeping the depth going at 1 Kn (or 2 Kn in extremely bad weather).

Well done Teddy, Anti Humming Bird Mod make us plan better the approach routes, since now it's anymore possible to go on the course of the convoy and wait submerged for it!

[THE_MASK]

Ok i will try that . Thanks .

[HEMISENT]

Teddy, the anti-humminbird mod is working great for me. I have no complaints. I rarely sat still anyway but now it's effects are just something additional to have to compensate for. Still don't understand why interrupting a crash dive negates mod effects but....

Great work.

[THE_MASK]

REinstalled sh3 and now nummingbird works perfect . thanks

[Gammel]

Sorry for stupid questions...

Am i right the changes have to be made to the submarine .sim file?

Did you (Teddy Bar and Cdre Gibs) only changed the displacementSurfaced value?

Where can i download the Anti Humming bird mod, or are the changes already in NYGM 2.0? (i guess not)

Would you like to post the changes you made to the corresponding files?

Whats the color of the night?

[CB..]

thanks for the info on the mass entrys highly fascinating stuff nice one-
perhaps some minor experiments with reducing /increasing the submerged drag of the u-boat might smooth some of the issues--?
perhaps allowing the player to use the sinking momentum to gain enough speed to regain control briefly wihout increasing the throttle--allowing some grey areas of control to be exploited by the player in tight spots--the boat does excellerate during a dive/surface manaeuver--in theory if it excellerates enough the boat will stop sinking/rising?..or is it teid directly to the throttle settings it self and not forward speed--?

seems to me there's some grey areas here that could develop into quite a "playfull" (if that's the right word) way of u-boat control

[Der Teddy Bar]

Originally Posted by sober

I just started a new career in the med in 41 and the same thing is happening . When i dive and come pack to periscope depth i cannot get pack to 12 mts without going to at least 5 knots . The sub sinks like a stone unless doing at least 3 knots and at 1 or 2 knots just keeps sinking . Mods i have are NYGM VER 2 , NYGM Turn correction mod , NYGM vis mod . Cheers .

You are suffering the Crash Dive Blues.

Let me start by saying that the interrupted crash dive behaviour is a evident in a vanilla install of SHIII 1.4b, this ‘feature’ is brought to the fore by the NYGM U-Boat Mod.

If you order a crash dive and before the u-boat reaches the crash dive depth (normally about 70 metres) you order the u-boat to another depth (higher or lower) then what happens is that the u-boat sits down by the stern at an angle of about 10 degrees! The only way to get the u-boat back onto an even keel is then to order another crash dive and of course let it complete.

Due to the abundance of positive buoyancy that allows the U-Boat to hover like a Humming Bird this ‘feature’ was not seen by the player. It would have however made the u-boat sink or sink more severely when the stern of the u-boat was flooding but this is something that the player would have expected and hard to tell the difference between flooding occurrences.

So if you order a crash dive ensure that you let the u-boat go the full distance, you can however change speed & direction without issue.

1. You can change speed after ordering a crash dive without incuring the Crash Dive Blues
2. You can change direction after ordering a crash dive without incuring the Crash Dive Blues

For example, if I order a crash dive and as the u-boat reaches a depth of 15 metres then order silent running and a course change of 180 degrees, as long as I allow the u-boat to level out at the specified crash dive depth, then I will not expereince the Crash Dive Blues.

I hope this helps.

[Der Teddy Bar]

Originally Posted by Gammel

Sorry for stupid questions...

Am i right the changes have to be made to the submarine .sim file?

Did you (Teddy Bar and Cdre Gibs) only changed the displacementSurfaced value?

Where can i download the Anti Humming bird mod, or are the changes already in NYGM 2.0? (i guess not)

Would you like to post the changes you made to the corresponding files?

Whats the color of the night?

The NYGM Anti Humming Bird modlet is part of the NYGM Tonnage War Mod.

For the NYGM AHB Mod we made changes to the u-boat with an additional zone and then a zones.cfg change.

For the positive bouyancy we changed the MASS.

[HEMISENT]

Originally Posted by Der Teddy Bar

You are suffering the Crash Dive Blues.

Let me start by saying that the interrupted crash dive behaviour is a evident in a vanilla install of SHIII 1.4b, this ‘feature’ is brought to the fore by the NYGM U-Boat Mod.

If you order a crash dive and before the u-boat reaches the crash dive depth (normally about 70 metres) you order the u-boat to another depth (higher or lower) then what happens is that the u-boat sits down by the stern at an angle of about 10 degrees! The only way to get the u-boat back onto an even keel is then to order another crash dive and of course let it complete.

Due to the abundance of positive buoyancy that allows the U-Boat to hover like a Humming Bird this ‘feature’ was not seen by the player. It would have however made the u-boat sink or sink more severely when the stern of the u-boat was flooding but this is something that the player would have expected and hard to tell the difference between flooding occurrences.

So if you order a crash dive ensure that you let the u-boat go the full distance, you can however change speed & direction without issue.

1. You can change speed after ordering a crash dive without incuring the Crash Dive Blues
2. You can change direction after ordering a crash dive without incuring the Crash Dive Blues

For example, if I order a crash dive and as the u-boat reaches a depth of 15 metres then order silent running and a course change of 180 degrees, as long as I allow the u-boat to level out at the specified crash dive depth, then I will not expereince the Crash Dive Blues.

I hope this helps.

Teddy, just throwing my two cents in. Since I've now got V2 up and running I've been testing different loaded files in the Sabotage/Malfunctions mod which Observer had some questions on. The most troubling was the "trim" malfunction dealing with the f/r ratio=. That will be deleted as it was screwing things up terribly in regards to the anti-HB modlet.
The other file was the crash depth=. This random file was set at 300m simulating stuck dive planes, jammed valves or any number of items which could possibly send the boat to the bottom on a crash dive(even a toilet that was flushed improperly). This occurrence required the Captain to over ride/interrupt the crash dive order and set a new depth thereby rendering the anti-HB effect useless and then have problems with trim control.

I have now re-set the file to 200m which at least does not automatically send you to your doom if you let it run it's course. If you do interrupt the CD sequence you will still experience the problems trimming the boat as previously described but at least you'll live to tell about it. As for the trim problems...well, something must be malfunctioning which was the whole point to the mod in the first place.

Hope to get the edited files to JScones later tonight or tomorrow at the latest.