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

[makman94]

thank you (and all subsimers that are involved to this effort) very much for this new version H.Sie !

Originally Posted by h.sie

New version V15F2 available for beta testing.

Before I start to add Stieblers fixes, I decided to optimise some of my older fixes, because I finally found out how to create new events and console messages, which can be very useful!

New / optimised in V15F2:

• New Oxygen-Supply mod by LGN1 (Idea, research, testing, insistent motivation of tired programmer) and h.sie (tired programmer). Thanks also go to Fader_Berg for a very important information.
  So far, SH3 models a 100% renewable oxygen (O2) supply. That means: After a long period of diving, say 40 hours, it was enough to surface and after that the Uboat was able to dive for 40 hours again and again. Now, with this patch, O2 is divided into two parts: A renewable part and a non-renewable part. The renewable part is the O2 in the air of the Uboat. This part is sufficient for a diving period of about 5-7 hours. During this time the LI informs you about the O2 content of the air, starting at the normal value 21% and slowly decreasing to the critical value of 17%. At 17%, the LI automatically starts to add O2 from the oxygen-supply (contained in pressure bottles). This O2 supply is sufficient for a long diving period of about 30 - 100 hours (depending on Uboat type), but that O2-supply is non-renewable! That means: It is not filled up when surfacing. Only the O2 in the air is restored to the normal value of 21% when surfacing. From now on the Player has to act economically regarding O2 supply, what adds a new strategical component to the game. The consumption of oxygen depends on the current crew number. The more crew, the more O2 is consumed. The consumption of O2 will be lowered if the crew is on silent-running routine. The net effect is that the U-boat can stay submerged longer. Repairing, flooding recovery and reloading of torpedoes will boost the O2 consumption. The former Co2-Gauge now acts as a gauge for the non-renewable O2-supply!

• Hydrophone Fix (optimised): Hydrophone now is switched on 10 seconds delayed after diesels are switched off and/or Uboat has reached minimum depth for Hydrophone use. This is in order to prevent contact reports in high waves when Uboat dives deep into the waves for a short time.

• Fog warning (optimised): Fog warning now is only active if the Uboat isn't deeper than periscope depth. If the Watch Officer is on the bridge, he gives a message "Fog sighted, Sir".

• Internal / external torpedo reload (optimised): The weapons officer now gives status messages (e.g. "Cannot reload in bad weather" or "We can dive in 5 minutes") in order to give the player some essential status information. Internal & external reload fixes can now be independently selected/deselected from each other in Stieblers OptionsSelector.

Be careful! New action necessary for patch versions V15F and later!

The Supplement to V15 (JSGME) mod for patch versions V15F and later now contains two files named en_menu.txt and de_menu.txt with some new console messages. I used the two files that came with GWX 3.0 and added the new messages at the end of the files. If JSGME reports file conflicts regarding these two files, maybe because you use a different GUI or supermod, there is some action necessary before activating the Supplement mod:

1. Copy the last lines of the files, beginning with "h.sie sh3.exe patch" (entries 4815 to 4827) from these files into the files of your GUI and
2. Delete these two files from the Supplement mod and
3. Activate the Supplement mod (without any file conflicts).

Optional Addition from LGN1:
For the new Oxygen-Supply Fix, there's an optional Mod "Optional O2-Gauges" available, that changes the graphics design of the former CO2 gauge into an O2-gauge.

Hope you like it!

Gähn!
h.sie

I assume this version contains all previous fixes too?? And to install it I would need to uninstall my old core fixes?? How am I supposed to do that? I couldn't figure out how.

[Kaleun Cook]

I assume this version contains all previous fixes too?? And to install it I would need to uninstall my old core fixes?? How am I supposed to do that? I couldn't figure out how.

I think you need an unfixed version of your SH3.exe (at least that's what I did). If you still have the folder of the previous version "E", there might be a backup of your unfixed exe with the extension .old in it. If not, the .exe mentioned here will work, too: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=160118

edit: Where are my manners - first of all: Thanks h.sie for improving these great fixes yet again!

[h.sie]

@USNSCasey...:

Kaleun Cook is right. Just save your original unpatched sh3.exe (or renamed sh3.old) somewhere in a secure place for later use.

h.sie

[Wreford-Brown]

Originally Posted by h.sie

So far, SH3 models a 100% renewable oxygen (O2) supply. That means: After a long period of diving, say 40 hours, it was enough to surface and after that the Uboat was able to dive for 40 hours again and again. Now, with this patch, O2 is divided into two parts: A renewable part and a non-renewable part. The renewable part is the O2 in the air of the Uboat but that O2-supply is non-renewable!

Didn't u-boats have compressors to fill their O2 bottles?

[SquareSteelBar]

Originally Posted by Wreford-Brown

Didn't u-boats have compressors to fill their O2 bottles?

Where should that O₂ come from?

[Kaleun Cook]

From page 72 of this thread:

Originally Posted by h.sie

Moin!

According to LGN1's research, the modelling/calculation of Oxygen-Supply and Diving Times in SH3 is wrong:

(In the following, let's assume a max. diving time of 72 hours for example.)

In SH3, when surfacing after 72 hours of diving, the complete supply of oxygene is restored, so that the boat is able to dive 72 hours for a second and third time and so on.

According to LGN1's research, the situation was different in reality: After 5-6 hours of diving, the oxygene in the air of the boat became so low that one had to add oxygene from the oxygene supply (what leads to a max. diving time of 72 hours). BUT THE OXYGENE SUPPLY COULD NOT BE RESTORED. When surfacing, only the oxygene in the air of the compartments of the boat is restored, so that the boat is only able to dive for 5-6 hours in the future, because the oxygene supply is empty.

That means: The player has to be very economical with oxygene supply. Diving periods longer than 5-6 hours are critical because oxygene supply is used and reduced and cannot be restored.

In my opinion this is a very interesting point, because is adds a stategical component to the game. But before I try to model / program this, I want to know if there is any historical information about oxygene supply and diving times.....

Thank you!
h.sie


On the ToDO-List:

* Accurate modelling of Oxygene supply
* Adapt Stieblers Fixes to fit my personal taste (if I get his permission)
* Try to model more dud torpedoes.
* After that: Stop modding, start playing!

Maybe LGN1 is around to explain this research to everyone?

[SquareSteelBar]

What I mean is: the compressors aren't able to put pure oxygen into the bottles by magic...

[Wreford-Brown]

Originally Posted by SquareSteelBar

What I mean is: the compressors aren't able to put pure oxygen into the bottles by magic...

Did they hold O2 or compressed air?

O2 would be tricky (I don't know whether the right filters were available in WW2) but air compressors could work - it would be the same principal as filling scuba tanks. Compress air into the tanks, release into the u-boat when required and refill when surfaced. I genuinely don't know if they had this ability but if they didn't it would seem like a bit of an oversight.

Type VII:

The motor room contained the two small electric motors, which were aligned on the drive shafts from the diesel engines. These electric motors were designed to work on the direct current supplied by the storage batteries. The control panels that monitored the boat's electrical power were located above these motors. The two large air compressors were located aft of the motors, the electrical compressor on the port side, and the smaller, diesel-driven Junkers compressor on the starboard.

http://www.u47.org/english/u47_boa.asp?page=6#ixzz1L64uBycV

If these compressors weren't used to fill air bottles to help fill the u-boat when underwater (and to push torpedoes out of the ship) what were they used for?

[SquareSteelBar]

Originally Posted by Wreford-Brown

Air compressors could...

Air ≠ O₂

I think it was impossible to fractionate air onboard

...If these compressors weren't used to fill air bottles to help fill the u-boat when underwater (and to push torpedoes out of the ship) what were they used for?

In main point for surfacing and to manage buoyancy [Anblasen, blow ballast].

[LGN1]

Hi,

SquareSteelBar is right. U-boats had pure oxygen tanks and compressed air tanks. Only compressed air was not enough. Let's look at an example:

Suppose we have a volume of 10l air which contains (roughly) 0.2*10l O2 and no CO2. Now we start to transform O2 to CO2. After some time we have in our volume 1l O2 and 1l CO2, i.e., a concentration of 10% CO2. If we want to have a constant concentration of CO2, we have to remove the CO2 and replace it with something new. The removal was done on u-boats by 'Alkalipatronen'.

Now what happens if we replace the removed CO2 by air? We get 1l*0.2=0.2l of new O2. However, we have already used 1l O2. The new oxygen concentration is now only 1.2/10 = 0.12 instead of 0.2. Thus, we have to add pure oxygen to keep the oxygen concentration constant.

Now the crucial question is whether u-boats could produce pure oxygen AND also recover their Alkalipatronen. As far as I know they could not. I've never read anything about any machine on a u-boat that could do that. In addition, I've read about one account where a boat was almost sunk in the Bay of Biscay because the commander wanted to save oxygen for the patrol area and therefore did not travel submerged. In the context of the Norway campaign I've also read about a boat returning to base (among other things) because of low oxygen supply.

If someone knows for sure that u-boats could refill their pure oxygen tanks and their Alkalipatronen, I would be happy to be corrected.

Cheers, LGN1

[LGN1]

Just one further comment:

In principle one should model an oxygen tank in SH3 and the supply of Alkalipatronen. The problem is that both are depleted differently because the CO2 concentration should not exceed 1.5%, but the oxygen concentration can decrease from roughly 20% to 17% (3% decrease) before pure oxygen has to be supplied. In addition, I don't know of any hard facts about the amount of Alkalipatronen on board a u-boat. That's why the Alkalipatronen part is neglected (it's assumed that only O2 is the limiting factor).

One should also keep in mind that these things are not an exact science because the O2 consumption of crews was never the same, no one died at once when the CO2 concentration exceeded 1.5%,... the crucial and important thing about h.sie's great new version is that you cannot longer dive as often as you like for long periods.

Cheers, LGN1

[h.sie]

AFAIK only the newest generations of Uboats are able to fractionate/produce pure O2 during diving.

[h.sie]

By the way: Thanks to all who decided to do some beta-testing. I suggest to use the Weather Transitions Test Fix

http://www.mediafire.com/?6h7v5xkka645dgl

in order to see the new V15F2 Fixes work when weather changes. The Weather Transitions Test Fix triggers a weather change from good to bad and back to good exactly every 30 minutes and is available only for testing purposes.

h.sie

[Wreford-Brown]

Thank you - every day is a schoolday here on subsim and I enjoy being taught by you guys who know more about u-boats than I probably ever will.