[REL] Realistic Sinking Physics

[tater]

Redwine, that observation is very interesting regarding the penetration.

tater

[WernerSobe]

Originally Posted by nimitstexan

I guess I would first suggest that the hitpoints be reevaluated down from 20000 point standard (maybe suggesting GWX as a starting point if nothing else comes to mind) so that there is at least the chance sinking ships through a loss of structural integrity with enough hits or of literally blowing apart some of the smaller ships apart from hits to magazines or ammo stores. Secondly I would recommend tweaking the other parameters as necessary so that ships sink a little faster (I would honestly suggest, if possible, halving the times listed in the readme to about 5-10 minutes for the small merchants, 15-20 minutes for the mediums, and something less than the several hours it takes for the big ones), and crews are almost always willing to abandon ship when the decks are awash if not sooner.

Do not misunderstand me. I believe NSM is better than the default "sink or 30 seconds or not at all." But is I understand it your goal is to make tihngs more historical, and these are my humble suggestions towards that end.

thank you for sharing your point of view.

Let me clarify something. Flooding is the primary mean of sinking but its not the only one. Fuel and Ammo can explode and cause overhelming flooding or even break the ship in two parts and sink it in a matter of seconds. Some ships will take hours but thats not the rule and you can always speed it up by giving it more.

"Sinking for hours" is something you will rarely see. In example when you hit something big with only one torpedoe. You can wait for hours and it might sink. Or you can just give it another torpedoe and kill it instantly. You can speed up the process at any time.

Ive recomended using 3-4 torpedoes for a big ship. That doesnt mean it is the minimum. They can also be sank by only one if you hit them right. Ive said it can take hours to sink them, yes but thats not the rule. Even big ships can be taken down in few minutes it depends how you hit them. Small ships in example will in 90% of cases sink from one torpedoe. And they will never take more then two. So i dont think it is necessary to return their hitpoints.

Ships that are killed by hitpoints sink in a very unrealistic way. Like a stone. Because when they lose all their hitpoints all their compartments are instantly destroyed.

[nimitstexan]

Originally Posted by WernerSobe

thank you for sharing your point of view.

Let me clarify something. Flooding is the primary mean of sinking but its not the only one. Fuel and Ammo can explode and cause overhelming flooding or even break the ship in two parts and sink it in a matter of seconds. Some ships will take hours but thats not the rule and you can always speed it up by giving it more.

"Sinking for hours" is something you will rarely see. In example when you hit something big with only one torpedoe. You can wait for hours and it might sink. Or you can just give it another torpedoe and kill it instantly. You can speed up the process at any time.

Ive recomended using 3-4 torpedoes for a big ship. That doesnt mean it is the minimum. They can also be sank by only one if you hit them right. Ive said it can take hours to sink them, yes but thats not the rule. Even big ships can be taken down in few minutes it depends how you hit them. Small ships in example will in 90% of cases sink from one torpedoe. And they will never take more then two. So i dont think it is necessary to return their hitpoints.

Ships that are killed by hitpoints sink in a very unrealistic way. Like a stone. Because when they lose all their hitpoints all their compartments are instantly destroyed.

I guess what I am saying is (a) in my experiance so far medium sized (3000-5000 ton range) merchants are always taking 2-3 torpedos, and even then not always sinking [if that is abnormal, then I guess it will even out], (b) the hit point/structural failure type sinking, while it should not be the prevelent method, should be possible (even without an ammo/fuel explosion), and (c) I have yet to see any ship break in half or sink on a more or less even keel. From first hand accounts of guys like Beach and O'Kane ships, especially some of the smaller or older ones, would take a torpedo or two and break in half, capsize, or otherwise sink in a couple of minutes or less. Or in other words, in the case of the some ships, particularly merchant ships, the hit points should be set up in such a way to simulate the chance that a single torpedo could either flood compartments it did not hit directly through shock damage opening up seams or (on small and some medium-sized ships) break a ship in half.

Either way, its your mod; those are just my thoughts.

[WernerSobe]

well i will consider releasing a "light version" together with next release. So you can chose between more and less realistic.

[Anvart]

I tested Natural Sinking Mechanics 2.6 test mission.
I have seen too static ship sinking, not adjusting critical flooding and unsinkable medium transport ...
Good and right job, but not finished ...

[WernerSobe]

Originally Posted by Anvart

I tested Natural Sinking Mechanics 2.6 test mission.
I have seen too static ship sinking, not adjusting critical flooding and unsinkable medium transport ...
Good and right job, but not finished ...

yes its not finished i use that thread for feedback and apply the changes.

unsinkable? all ships should sink give it more time or more torpedoes ^^

regarding critical floatatation. I couldnt find out what its good for. During my testings ive set it to 500.0 and ships didnt flood at all. Ranges between -10 and 10 did not changed anything so i decided to set it to zero. There seem to be no effect between 0 and 0.3 (default)

[Anvart]

Originally Posted by WernerSobe

yes its not finished i use that thread for feedback and apply the changes.

unsinkable? all ships should sink give it more time or more torpedoes ^^

regarding critical floatatation. I couldnt find out what its good for. During my testings ive set it to 500.0 and ships didnt flood at all. Ranges between -10 and 10 did not changed anything so i decided to set it to zero. There seem to be no effect between 0 and 0.3 (default)

Medium transport (at first) bearing ~ 0° two hits in center, after two hours not sink, addition two hits in center after 1 hour no any changes...

[PepsiCan]

Anvart: does that mean you delivered 4 torpedoes at roughly the same spot? If so, then all you did was make the hole that was already there a little bigger, but you didn't cause additional cargo spaces to flood. So, buoyancy remains intact.

[nimitstexan]

Originally Posted by PepsiCan

Anvart: does that mean you delivered 4 torpedoes at roughly the same spot? If so, then all you did was make the hole that was already there a little bigger, but you didn't cause additional cargo spaces to flood. So, buoyancy remains intact.

The problem is, in real life repeated hit near the same spot would start to cause damage to the structure of the ship, shaking things loose that were already wakened and generally making take on water faster. And if a torpedo actually managed to go through a hole previously and explode inside a ship, it would be devestating. While it might be preferable in the inital slavo to spread the torpedos out, multiple torpedos hitting near each other are going to effect a ship beyond the one or two compartments they hit, and in the case of smaller ships, could cause it to sink outright. NSM does unfortunately eliminate (or at least severely reduce) that possibility.

[phloon]

Originally Posted by PepsiCan

Anvart: does that mean you delivered 4 torpedoes at roughly the same spot? If so, then all you did was make the hole that was already there a little bigger, but you didn't cause additional cargo spaces to flood. So, buoyancy remains intact.

That's the problem with this sort of damage model, though I certainly prefer it over the stock one. It was the same with the NYGM mod for sh3. The best way to sink a ship quickly is to spread your hits across from sten to stern. I've seen some large ships go down from a single torpedo to the bow, but it takes a while. Once the deck is awash it's usually just a matter of time.

Another quirk of this damage model stems from the abandon ship behavior. You can easily kill a ship with just a few gun hits along the waterline. Once you breach enough compartments the crew will abandon ship-- even if it still takes an hour for it to finally sink. Unfortunately, I don't know if it's possible to get around this if the "smart" abandon ship behavior is kept. Maybe the trigger could be changed to the level of flooding instead of the number of holed compartments.

[WernerSobe]

Originally Posted by phloon

Another quirk of this damage model stems from the abandon ship behavior. You can easily kill a ship with just a few gun hits along the waterline. Once you breach enough compartments the crew will abandon ship-- even if it still takes an hour for it to finally sink. Unfortunately, I don't know if it's possible to get around this if the "smart" abandon ship behavior is kept. Maybe the trigger could be changed to the level of flooding instead of the number of holed compartments.

Yes ive noticed that too. Unfortunaly there is not much i can do. The trigger is hardcoded. I compensate it with realistic reload times. 4 sec for a deckgun is way to fast. Historicaly deckguns would fire in 10-30 seconds a round.

Using 20 sec reload time it takes about 20 minutes until the ship is abandoned i think thats ok.

[Anvart]

Unsinkable transport ...
Last picture was without changes more than one hour (summary 3 hours, with acceleration)...

[Bill Nichols]

She looks salvagable to me.

[caspofungin]

Originally Posted by Bill Nichols

She looks salvagable to me.

couple of hours with a bucket, right as rain

[WernerSobe]

i agree it needs more tweaking. As i said its not finished yet.

It exposed to be a question of individual taste how much the ship can take and how fast they should sink. So ive decided to release two versions of this mod in the feature. The classic one working towards realism. And the light version with faster sinking time and maybe returned hitpoints.