Underwater range and endurance

[Sniper297]

I know there's been discussion about the S boats submerged range and recharge time, but I noticed the range is a problem for all the fleet boats as well.

All the data I can find indicates all US fleet boats from Porpoise to Balao, and the U-boats from type VII on, list endurance as 48 hours at 2 knots. So 96 miles in 48 hours before the batteries are dead.

Not getting that here, at 2 knots the battery is down to 50% after 14 hours, down to 10% after 26 hours. Total range about 50-55 miles.

So I started tinkering with the files;

\Data\Submarine\NSS_Gato\NSS_Gato.cfg

and

\Data\Submarine\NSS_Gato\NSS_Gato.sim

CFG is pretty simple so the surfaced and submerged speed percentages use the same datablock;

[Unit]
ClassName=SSGato
3DModelFileName=data/Submarine/NSS_Gato/NSS_Gato
HumanPlayable=YES
Interior=data/Interior/NSS_Gato/NSS_Gato
UnitType=200
MaxSpeed=21
MaxSpeedSubmerged=9
Length=95
Width=8.3
RenownAwarded=130


[EngineProperties]
AllStop=0.00
AheadSlow=0.40
AheadOneThird=0.57
AheadStandard=0.80
AheadFull=0.94
AheadFlank=1.00
BackSlow=-0.26
BackStandard=-0.40
BackFull=-0.53
BackEmergency=-0.66

40% of 9 knots is 3.6, so you have to switch to the knots dial to manually set 2 knots for the cruise test.

In the SIM file;

11:unit_submarine

Under the ranges\submerged it's;

miles=96
knots=2

Which is the correct values, but starting a career with a brand new sub diving to 100 feet and cruising at 2 knots I don't GET 96 miles, I get half that.

So I added more to the range including ridiculous numbers like miles=2500 but still don't get anywhere near 96 miles at 2 knots. Did the programmers make a m!$Take converting from metric hectares to nautical miles, or is there another file I'm missing that affects submerged range and endurance?

[Sniper297]

Okay, this is ridiculous. Under ranges/submerged it says miles=96, note underneath specifically says "Maximum range in miles". By all that's holy changing that number to 960 should give it 10 times the range, but it changes nothing - still down to 50% battery after 12 hours and 24 miles, down to 10% after 22 hours and 44 miles. The only thing that number ACTUALLY affects is the recharge time - the higher the number the longer it takes to recharge the batteries! Apparently that number is not consulted at all while discharging the batteries, only when charging, so the screwy thing is programmed to look at that number after you surface to calculate how many miles you ran while discharging the battery to the current level, then uses some kind of bizarre formula to decide how many hours (days!) it should take to recharge according to the number of imaginary miles you ran.

I see now why this was never fixed, some of these labels are a flaming lie.

[ETR3(SS)]

Yeah, quite a few of us figured that out a while ago. Welcome to the club though!

[Sniper297]

Thanks, does the club have a secret handshake or will a salute do?

I'm a glutton for punishment (and there's nothing on TV) so I went back to the unmodified copy to look at the numbers.

S-18 has range 100 miles speed 5
Porpoise has range 72 miles speed 2
All the rest have 96 miles speed 2.

Test I ran submerged to 100 feet while stationary, then ran ahead 1/3rd until the time acceleration went to 1 with the "battery down to 10%" warning. All the boats went about 40 miles, some at 3 knots some at 4 (the percentage of full speed in the CFG files can be changed so any boat does 2 knots submerged, but that also affects surface speed and doesn't seem to make any actual difference in the submerged range - ahead slow is ahead slow). Stop and surface, without moving, time the recharge rate from 10% to 100% without moving (so all the engine power goes to the batteries instead of a percentage to propulsion).

S-18 - 57 hours.
Porpoise - 2 hours 15 minutes.
All other fleet boats 2 hours even.

The rate for the fleet boats is way too fast, should take 6-8 hours. Sugar boat, as has been discussed before, is glacial.

So what happens if I change the numbers in the S-18 from 100 miles 5 knots to 96 miles 2 knots? Nothing to the range, but the recharge from 10% to 100& takes 9 1/2 hours.

Methinks a programmer somewhere labeled something wrong, because the submerged range value has zip point diddly squat to do with the submerged range. But those looking to improve the recharge time on the sugar boats without affecting anything else might want to take a look at that data.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Sniper297

Test I ran submerged to 100 feet while stationary, then ran ahead 1/3rd until the time acceleration went to 1 with the "battery down to 10%" warning. All the boats went about 40 miles....

I have seen the same thing with my tests. I didn't bother with all the sub classes; after getting nowhere with the S-class and Porpoise class, I figured I was wasting my time.


As far as why all this doesn't work, I have no idea. It doesn't make sense to me. I thought perhaps there was a hard coded limit according to what U-boat performance was, but you said they had similar endurance, so that can't be it. While the game ignores higher numbers, it is possible to reduce sub. range.

The only thing I have to add, is that the recharge times are also a function of the eng power and E eng power. The relationship didn't seem to be linear, however, and I didn't really try to pin it down. Messing with those, would screw up propulsion, and I had no intention of jacking up everything else, to improvise a fix for the batteries.

You would think they would have fixed this sort of thing, before getting to version 1.5 of the game.

[Sniper297]

Yeah, the one experiment I made years ago with the S class diesel horsepower worked, the batteries recharged in a reasonable time. It didn't change the top speed at all, but it changed the acceleration characteristics - IIRC from a dead stop to 12 knots took about a minute without the hack, 10 seconds with the hack. I'm wondering if SKWAS misread what did what to who (and who paid the bail if anyone got arrested) when he was programming S3D. Or possibly the original programmer of the subroutine put a comment in the wrong place.

[Sniper297]

Fun being senile, I was off in several places. It was about one year ago - this is 2014 or 2041? Never mind. Anyway it went 0-12 about 40 seconds in stock, 5 seconds with the horsepower hack, and only cut the charging time in half.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...=200773&page=3

Since the range miles and speed numbers don't seem to have any effect on anything else, that's probably a better way to get close to realistic recharge times.

If we could find the recharge times, possibly THAT data would actually have nothing to do with recharge times but extend the range.

[Sailor Steve]

Don't forget that S-boats weren't a part of the original program. They were added at the last minute when potential players insisted, and people pointed out then that they weren't completed properly. Whether they can be properly fixed is a question no one has been able to answer yet.

[Sniper297]

Meantime try the improper fix and see what you think - change the numbers in the S boat SIM file to match the fleet boats, see if it affects anything other than the recharge time.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Don't forget that S-boats weren't a part of the original program. They were added at the last minute when potential players insisted, and people pointed out then that they weren't completed properly. Whether they can be properly fixed is a question no one has been able to answer yet.

The battery problem seems to go across the board. I couldn't get the Porpoise batteries to proper spec, either.





I was wondering if S3D was somehow malfunctioning (not actually putting in the values we enter), but I guess that is unlikely.

[TG626]

I don't know much about the inner workings of these files, but I do know that as time went by in the world of flight simulator, there were variables that became ineffective. They were vestigal left over a from earlier versions that while they would appear in the config files of later versions, were ignored.

Perhaps that's what is going on here?

[Sniper297]

Hard to tell, SH4 was essentially SH3 version 2 with a few changes for the Pacific war. There's probably a few hundred megs of SH3 u-boat files that aren't used at all but were never removed because the programmers either didn't have time or were unsure which files weren't used.

[Sniper297]

Testing with just the Sargo, I copied my original NSS_Sargo.sim file in to run some tests, original numbers;

Miles=96
Knots=2

I ran the test 10 times because the second run I got a recharge time from 10% to 100% of 5 minutes! (Honest Chief not a drop. Unless you count rum. ) The rest were consistent, about 50 miles range and a 3 hour 15 minute recharge time. So;

Miles=96
Knots=2
Actual distance 50 miles
Recharge time 3:15

On to the hacks;

Miles=100
Knots=9
Actual distance 63 miles
Recharge time 11:30

Miles=6
Knots=50
Actual distance 63 miles
Recharge time 48 hours

Miles=1
Knots=50
Actual distance 63 miles
Recharge time 9 hours

Miles=0.5
Knots=90
Actual distance 63 miles
Recharge time 20 hours

Miles=1
Knots=30
Actual distance 59 miles
Recharge time 2 hours

Dunno what to make of all that, it seems to have some kind of digital effect on the range - it's either 49 to 50 miles or 59 to 63 miles, change either number and the recharge time changes a lot, the range changes between one of two values. I ran that last test three times to confirm it was actually 59 miles rather than 63, and was extra careful with the distance measurement. Not sure if 0.5 is actually accepted, possibly it just reads it as 1, but since the miles and knots appear to be an integrated system it's hard to tell.

[Sniper297]

Miles=1
Knots=45
Actual distance 63 miles
Recharge time 6 hours

That's as close as I can get to reality for the Sargo right now, about 22 hours at 3 knots, about 63 miles range before battery down to 10%. The game apparently doesn't factor in number of engines on charge, because stopped dead for six hours (drifting with all 4 engines on charge) or cruising ahead standard for six hours makes no difference to the recharge time.

I can't remember where I saw what numbers, but it was something like 1 hour charge = 4 hours (or maybe it was six) submerged at slow speed. That may have been for the type VII U-boat, data on the Gato I read indicates 36 hours at 2 1/2 knots rather than 48 hours at 2 knots (IIRC that was the figure for the type VII) but the difference is only six miles, 90 miles for US fleet boat versus 96 miles for Das Boot. Don't really matter since whatever I do I can't get near 90 miles or 36 hours at present.

[TG626]

Since we know what it does with 96 miles and 2 knots, I wonder, what does it do with 2 miles and 96 knots?