Rig for depth charge!

[Sniper297]

Been playing with some numbers in DepthCharges.zon and NSS_Sargo.zon to see if I can make the game a bit more analog. Biggest trouble with stock is it's digital, either on or off - no hits no damage or one hit so much damage so rapidly there's no point in even having a damage control crew.

One necessary clarification, English translation failure - "CRASH" depth in the CFG file means the depth at which a "crash dive" will level off. In the .zon file they actually meant CRUSH depth, the depth at which the pressure hull starts taking damage. That's a percentage variable too, if your "crash" depth is 150 you'll start losing hit points at 160 when you're fresh out of overhaul. If your hull damage shows 50% then your new crash depth is 75, since that's 50% of the original 150.

Stock numbers (SARGO);

ArmorLevel=25
Hit_Points=320
CrashDepth (CRUSH depth)=152
CrashSpeed=2.0
Rebound=0.45

What that means is below 152 meters (501 feet) you start losing 2 hit points per second, but since the damage is cumulative it takes a lot less than 160 seconds (2 minutes 40 seconds) before total collapse - as the hull damage increases the crash depth decreases so by staying at the same depth you get further below crush depth since that is moving up. In other words at 550 feet you're 50 below crush depth, taking 2 HP per second. Stay there for 1 minute 20 seconds and your hull is 50% damaged, the new crush depth is now 250 feet, so now you're 300 feet below crush depth without having moved. This is the cause of the "instant death" syndrome, the combination of decreasing crush depth while increasing actual depth from flooding which causes the damage to happen faster and faster.

Numbers I'm playing with;


ArmorLevel=25
Hit_Points=1920
CrashDepth (CRUSH depth)=120
CrashSpeed=0.1
Rebound=0.45

120 meters is 396 feet, 500 feet seemed a little excessive for a Sargo class to me. The 0.1 CrashSpeed however means ONE point of damage every 10 seconds, and with 1900 hit points you'd have to stay below crush depth for 15 minutes to do serious damage, and once you came back up you'd still have enough hit points for the damage control team to have some actual hope.

The other banging around from depth charges;

MinEF=170
MaxEF=230
AP=0.0
MinRadius=4.5
MaxRadius=40

So the max damage of 230 hit points is done if the charge explodes within 15 feet of the hull - with a max of 320 HP for the whole sub that don't leave much. 170 hit points at 132 feet distance seems a little excessive, and zero damage outside that radius seems kinda weird too. So I hacked that;


MinEF=70
MaxEF=200
AP=0.0
MinRadius=2.0
MaxRadius=90

That feels more reasonable, a charge going off within 300 feet does a little damage, one within 6 feet does a lot, and when you're hit you're usually hit with multiple charges at one time so the 6X increase in hit points is necessary for survival.

Only oddball I've found from this is the idiots in the destroyers - in real life they had enough sense to speed up before rolling ash cans off the stern racks, in game they sometimes drop shallow charges while moseying along, blowing themselves up. My thinking is it would be better to figure out a way to make them smarter instead of reducing the blast radius of the depth charges, unfortunately there's no way to do that. One possibility is reducing the damage at max radius to 50, see if fewer of them blow off their fantails.

[TorpX]

So the max damage of 230 hit points is done if the charge explodes within 15 feet of the hull - with a max of 320 HP for the whole sub that don't leave much. 170 hit points at 132 feet distance seems a little excessive, and zero damage outside that radius seems kinda weird too.

I'm not sure, but I don't believe this is how it works. I think the game 'rolls dice' and generates a random number between 320 and 170 and applies that at a diminishing level to zones between 4.5 and 40 m. That is what I've been lead to believe.

Can anyone confirm this?

[Sniper297]

Can't confirm it but it wouldn't surprise me - that's exactly how the dud torpedoes work, and I strongly suspect the dice are loaded.
Latest numbers seem to be working okay, instead of half a dozen escorts blowing their own fantails off in a single battle I had only one during an entire patrol pull the Barney Fife - creeping along at 3 knots and rolling a shallow charge off the side rack was a bad idea in real life too. They don't have to be cranking along at full tilt boogie to escape the blast effects either, any reasonable speed will keep them clear. And my sub don't get away scot free 50 yards outside the pattern, there's some minor damage, and it's cumulative too - dozens of near misses do the same damage over time as a hit. Not very scientific, but it just FEELS more realistic to me.

[TorpX]

Yeah, the escorts blowing themselves up is very unfortunate. I don't know why Ubi couldn't just make the DD's and their DC's historically accurate. Too much in a hurry, I guess.

[HertogJan]

Originally Posted by TorpX

Yeah, the escorts blowing themselves up is very unfortunate. I don't know why Ubi couldn't just make the DD's and their DC's historically accurate. Too much in a hurry, I guess.

That and soooooooooooooow much els

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by HertogJan

That and soooooooooooooow much els

Ha, ha, ........................ yeah.