Realism- and gameplay-related hardcode fixes for SH3.EXE

[Hitman]

as I've already written I'm reluctant to interpret the in-game wind speed differently because I think that storms are not as common as 15m/s wind speed in SH3 is. I think stronger winds are just missing in SH3 and you cannot fix this by interpreting 15m/s as a real storm. Such a procedure screws up the whole weather model.

In addition, with a factor of 0.3 we already have a minimum torpedo depth of 4.5m at 15 m/s. Take into account the 2m width and you end up with 6.5m. There are already quite a few ships in SH3 that you cannot attack anymore with the contact pistol setting at this depth. Maybe it's possible to increase the factor a bit, but if you increase it too much, players will hardly be able to attack any ships at 15m/s. And I think this is not realistic.

In my opinion, 15m/s wind should make things more complicated, but shouldn't be a show-stopper.

You have a point there, but the problem is that there are actually situations where it is impossible at all to shoot torpedoes, and they were rather frequent in the horrible weather of the North Atlantic/North Sea and Arctic. So I would consider seriously making torpedo shooting impossible with 15 m/s at least. The issue about that wind being too frequent with SH3, is something that IMHO is to be adressed with the weather fix by H.Sie and Stiebler.

Regarding the relation between wind speed (i.e. wave heigth) and torpedo failiure because of steering off course/failing to keep depth (Be it sinking or porpoising), ideally the parameter for the torpedo "failing" should be represented by a tridimensional steering off course (Letf/right/up/down) instead of just sinking to 25m when a certain chance happens. Why? Because that is how in real life worked as the sea would push the torpedo in any random direction from where it wouldn't be able to recover correct course, and the consequences are well different. If the torpedo just sinks to 25m when the trigger failiure programmed actuates, then the result can only be a total miss. However, in the other case the torpedo which is steered off course or off set depth, can: a) Impact on the same target but other area, b) Miss the target and hit another left or right, c) Miss the target below and hit another with more draft, d) Hit the target higher/lower and cause different amount of damage.

Of course, I understand that this might be simply too complicated for H.Sie to program, but it certainly would be worth to add two variables that linearly increase with windspeed for a) Steering off course left or right X degrees (Even fully circling, as that failiure also happened to german torpedoes sometimes) and b) Changing depth X metres.

That is as far as weather state goes, and on top of that we would add the variable for pre-1942 depth-keeping-fix. This one is constant until the torpedoes were fixed, whereas the weather variable will only of course happen when the bad weather influences the torpedoes.

[h.sie]

@Hitman:

Yes, it will model 2 parts - independent from each other:

- Duds due to Torpedo crisis until 1942 AND
- Duds due to Windspeed/waveheight and Torpedo-depth settings.

Regarding windspeed/waveheight we have now 2 very different views: You say 15m/s should be interpreted as maximum storm that makes torpedo shooting impossible, while LGN1 has the opinion, that 15m/s should be treated as moderate gale (according to the beaufort scale), which only makes torpedo shooting more difficult but not impossible. I think I'll do a compromise. Hmm.....

When I talk about duds or failure rates, I see it from the outcome regarding damage and sinkings. To keep things simple, I define for my mod: "When a ship is damaged, the torpedo is no dud".

Ok, that is not always true. But: These 4 very special cases a), b), c) and d) you are talking about (torpedo jumped out of the water surface, lost his course and luckily hit a different ship) are rare exceptions and have all in common, that still a ship has been damaged/sunk, what means - according to my definition: it was no dud.

Let's say your 4 very special cases occur with a chance of 1%. I can now statistically consider these cases by simply reducing the dud rate about 1%. The outcome and the gameplay balance are the same. Only one thing is missing: The eye-candy! You don't see the torpedo jumping out of the water and luckily sink a different ship. I must admit: I don't have time to model such an effect. In my opinion it is sufficient to model a dud by simply setting his depth to 25m.

- Let's say, the current state of the game is 70%.
- I offer to push it to 85%.
- 110% isn't possible !!!

Greetings,
h.sie

[Hitman]

Regarding windspeed/waveheight we have now 2 very different views: You say 15m/s should be interpreted as maximum storm that makes torpedo shooting impossible, while LGN1 has the opinion, that 15m/s should be treated as moderate gale (according to the beaufort scale), which only makes torpedo shooting more difficult but not impossible. I think I'll do a compromise. Hmm.....

I think both LGN1 and me actually think the same, i.e. 15 m/s is as much as you get in SH3, so it must correspond to a gale. But LGN points out rightfully that 15 m/s winds are more frequent in the game than gales in the real world, so treating them as such could probably exaggerate the effects.

I personally think that the excessive 15 m/s winds must be taken care of with the weather fix, not with compensating the torpedoes duds. Even if the duds are only increased to the max with just 15 and not even 14 m/s, it is important that the gale situation prevents the player absolutely from shooting, as it was in real life. It is not just accurate, but also dynamic, as the player will have to act depending on the sea state observed, just as real Kaleuns did.

Ok, that is not always true. But: These 4 very special cases a), b), c) and d) you are talking about (torpedo jumped out of the water surface, lost his course and luckily hit a different ship) are rare exceptions and have all in common, that still a ship has been damaged/sunk, what means - according to my definition: it was no dud.

Let's say your 4 very special cases occur with a chance of 1%. I can now statistically consider these cases by simply reducing the dud rate about 1%. The outcome and the gameplay balance are the same. Only one thing is missing: The eye-candy! You don't see the torpedo jumping out of the water and luckily sink a different ship. I must admit: I don't have time to model such an effect. In my opinion it is sufficient to model a dud by simply setting his depth to 25m.

Understood. As indicated in my previous post, I only said it to reflect what would be the absolutely perfect model, as a guideline, but I already was aware that the tiem and exhaustion constraints in you prevent it

[LGN1]

I know there were situations when u-boats could not use their torpedoes because of the weather. But I have no idea how often that happened. And I think qualitative statements like 'often' do not really help us.

Considering that you only use impact pistols from June '40 onwards until June '42 (historically correct), you will practically not be able to attack ships with a draft above 7-8m at 15m/s. If you look at the drafts of the ships in SH3 you can see that you will not be able to attack many ships (I guess more than 50% and no escorts at all). I think this is fine enough.

Having a 100% failure rate at 15m/s will just lead to the situation that most players will simply TC until better weather arrives. Since you find enough targets in SH3 this is faster than following a target and hoping for better weather.

Regards, LGN1

[Hitman]

I know there were situations when u-boats could not use their torpedoes because of the weather. But I have no idea how often that happened. And I think qualitative statements like 'often' does not really help us.

Unless we manage to get the statistics for the real weather in the north atlantic during the whole war, it is obvious that we will not be able to put precise numbers. The winters of 1940-1942 were regarded as some of the worst ever seen in the century, with terrific gales that precluded most naval (And air) action over the north sea and north atlantic largely for any medium to small boats. Destroyers struggled on convoys, and corvettes were sometimes sunk by the appaling weather.

If you want more precise figures based on the impression after reading about it, I can say that up to 25% of operations was hindered on the worst months of the winter. Is that an exact? No, of course it is an average of many considerations, locations and situations, but it is seldom to see a patrol record where the uboat was not badly affected by the horrible weather when trying to conduct an attack. If the 15 m/s winds occur in the game in 25% of the winter season, then I guess the results should be deemed correct. If not, then the weather fix might be revised, but I really think it is not logic to exclude a situation that we positively know was realistic, and happened like that. Note that you are just arguing about the weather frequency, not about the reality of the inability to shoot straight in gales.

Do we really want the player to be able to shoot effectively when he is seeing on the bridge mountanious seas, lightning, and the uboat bow jumping like mad up and down and left and right? Really? Nobody would ever believe that a 1 ton torpedo with 30 cms fins on the tail and travelling at 30-45 knots could steer straight through that, and that kills inmersion, realism, etc. Think that weather happens too much in SH3? Well, let's fix it, it's already done -just reduce the chances of such extreme weather even more! But trying to solve that by acting upon the torpedoes basing on statistics is, in my opinion, not a good solution. Because it is no consolation for the serious player who shoots a torpedo in good weather and fails, to know that this compensates when he shoots in appaling weather and hits!

Having a 100% failure rate at 15m/s will just lead to the situation that most players will simply TC until better weather arrives. Since you find enough targets in SH3 this is faster than following a target and hoping for better weather.

That's actually what the Kaleuns did, they almost always lost the contact due to simply not being able to keep up with it in the gales.

[LGN1]

Hi Hitman,

I see your point, but I think the weather in SH3 is just too poorly implemented to be used as a realistic constraint with such a strong impact. And really fixing the weather, IMHO, is impossible.

I guess in the present case I prefer to neglect this issue because it draws too much attention on the bad weather system and in effect, it just removes the 15m/s wind setting from the game-play. Because in this case at 15m/s there is not much you can do, but wait for better weather.

Regards, LGN1

[h.sie]

@Hitman: Have you tried my Weather Fix - Forte version? It reduces bad weather stronger than the standard version. Or, have you already tried Stieblers approach?

[LGN1]

I suggest the following model for the torpedo-failure probability:

p = 1 ............................................for TD < A*WS (--> surface runners always result in a dud)
P = 1 - (1-p0)/width*(TD - A*WS) .....for A*WS < TD < A*WS+width
p = p0 ...........................................for TD > A *WS+width

with the paramters p0, width, and A (TD is the torpedo's running depth set by the player and WS the wind speed).

For torpedoes with impact pistol I suggest:

A = 0.3333 (--> players can quickly calculate the wave height from the wind speed by dividing by 3)
width = 2m
p0 = 0.25 before June '40 and 0.1 afterwards until June '42

For torpedoes with magnetic pistol I suggest:
A = 0.3333 (--> players can quickly calculate the wave height from the wind speed by dividing by 3)
width = 2m
p0 = 0.05 until June '42

A major effect of this model is that you have to take the sea state into account when firing. A shallow torpedo depth is no longer possible if there is some wind. This will mainly affect the use of the impact pistol.

For players using only the magnetic pistol not much changes. If the torpedo depth is set deep enough, only an additional failure probability of 5% is added to the in-game premature failure rate.

In general, the model should result in a failure rate of roughly 25% until June '40 for both pistols. Using the impact pistol from then on (the magnetic was banned then), one should get a failure rate of roughly 10%.

For strong winds the player will not be able to attack ships with shallow draft (especially with the impact pistol).

Regards, LGN1

[reaper7]

Sounds good, +1

[h.sie]

would it make sense to disable magnetic from a certain time on

[LGN1]

Originally Posted by h.sie

would it make sense to disable magnetic from a certain time on

This can be done via the dials.cfg. Therefore, I would not do it, but leave it to the player himself how he wants it. I think it's always the best to leave as many choices as possible.

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by h.sie

would it make sense to disable magnetic from a certain time on

Maybe you could add a message in the Dialogue box something like 'Are you sure, BDU have restricted the use of Magnetic switches at this time' or something along them lines, whenver Magnetic is selected during that time frame.

[Hitman]

a message in the Dialogue box something like 'Are you sure, BDU have restricted the use of Magnetic switches at this time'

and add upon confirmation of switching pistol "I will have to report this to the Gestapo when we return, Herr Kaleun "

[h.sie]

@Hitman: It would be important for me to know whether your experiences result from playing with stock weather or from playing with my bad weather fix? the forte version drastically reduces 15m/s

[Hitman]

With your bad weather fix, normal version.

But I have played very little lately, have not much free time