What do the Values in S3ditor equal?

Specifically I'm asking in regards to in the .zon files of submarine. I know Crash Depth means Maximum Depth, what does the number you put in equal? I was told it meters, it doesn't appear to be. As the numbers don't match up. It must be in some sort of programming language stuff or something because a value of 82.5=200ft.


Anyways any info and advice in that area would be greatly appreciated!

Originally Posted by Sniper297

To clear up some possible confusion;

Originally Posted by Slyguy3129

For future reference and those who would like to know the setting are


S-18: 200feet; 82.5 Crash Depth Setting(CDS henceforth)


Porpoise, Salmon, Sargo, Tambor: 250feet; 105CDS


**Narwhal!!**, Gato: 300feet; 125CDS


Balao, Tench: 400feet; 170CDS

[Sniper297]

Google "meters to feet" and the first thing you get is a converter, according to that 82.5 meters = 270.669 feet. 200 feet would be 60.96 meters.

Yes that is what I am saying. The values aren't matching that.


I tested it in game I got the value from "Webster's S-Boat" mod. Where he made it for 200feet. That was the depth I was going for. But the value I was putting in 60.96 (like you said) wasn't giving me 200 feet to crush depth. I was crushing at 160~170.


The 82.5 number in game gives a crush depth of 200, I tested it out of curiosity.


Essentially I'm trying to tailor make a "Fleet Boat Realism" mod for myself where the sub had their tested depth. Maybe even try and make them handle the way they were supposed to if I can find info on that (dive speed, surface to PD speed, emergency dive speed, ect).


It's odd because other values seem straight forward, if I want the sub's max speed to be 13, the value is 13.


I'm sure it means something obvious, I just don't know what it is because I don't know a thing about modding.

[Sniper297]

To clear up some possible confusion;



The actual crush depth in the .zon file is the depth you start taking damage if you go below it - I just ran a test with this Porpoise, at 330 feet no damage for 2 minutes, at 335 feet I started taking damage after about one minute. Possibly there's a fudge factor, or a difference between 1.4 and 1.5. Never got any warning from the crew, I've heard people talk about "approaching critical depth" and "below safe depth" but never saw that on the message window. OTOH it could be audible only, and I do have speech turned off.

Second item is the needles;



Those are in the .cfg file instead of the .zon, the "max depth" in the .cfg file merely positions the red needle in the deep depth gauge, does not affect the actual crush depth in any way. The "crash depth" in the .cfg file is not the same as the one in the .zon file, the .cfg crash depth is the depth the crew will level off when you order a crash dive.

What I usually do is set the "crash depth" (CRUSH depth) in the .zon file, then set the "max depth" in the .cfg about 6 meters less than that number so the red needle on the deep depth gauge actually means something.

BTW, you are testing by starting a new career each time instead of loading a save game that already has the original values loaded?

Originally Posted by Sniper297

To clear up some possible confusion;



The actual crush depth in the .zon file is the depth you start taking damage if you go below it - I just ran a test with this Porpoise, at 330 feet no damage for 2 minutes, at 335 feet I started taking damage after about one minute. Possibly there's a fudge factor, or a difference between 1.4 and 1.5. Never got any warning from the crew, I've heard people talk about "approaching critical depth" and "below safe depth" but never saw that on the message window. OTOH it could be audible only, and I do have speech turned off.

Second item is the needles;



Those are in the .cfg file instead of the .zon, the "max depth" in the .cfg file merely positions the red needle in the deep depth gauge, does not affect the actual crush depth in any way. The "crash depth" in the .cfg file is not the same as the one in the .zon file, the .cfg crash depth is the depth the crew will level off when you order a crash dive.

What I usually do is set the "crash depth" (CRUSH depth) in the .zon file, then set the "max depth" in the .cfg about 6 meters less than that number so the red needle on the deep depth gauge actually means something.

BTW, you are testing by starting a new career each time instead of loading a save game that already has the original values loaded?

Yes that is what I mean. Now I see what you meant by multiple by 3.3 because you were getting ~330 out of 100!

But that isn't holding with my numbers. As 82.5 is 247, not 200.

What I'm trying to avoid is having to adjust the value, log into game, test, close game, change value, log into,...... If I can know like 82.5 is 200 feet, 250=.., ect. Because many of the different type had the same value (200, 250, 300, 350, 400).

Guess I'll just have to test the values and get one set for each. Time consuming and tedious, but that info will help. I was wondering how I could get the crew to let me know and for it to be displayed.

I planned on testing by going into single mission, selecting a mission that allows the boat I wish to test, and test it. As that seems to have the fewest clicks and load times.

[Sniper297]

"As 82.5 is 247, not 200"

According to my "close enough for government work" formula on the calculator, 82.5 times 3.3 = 272.25. According to the actual conversion gadget it's 270.669 feet. So it's not 200 or 247 however you convert it.

Don't get me wrong, some of SKWAS's notes ARE wrong, for example "tube load time (min)" and the number is 1.32 - however good your crewmen are they can't load a tube in 1.32 minutes. In the .sim file for a sub the range versus speed notes are correct when surfaced, completely wrong for the submerged values. But he's right on most things, all the tests I've done on depths confirmed his notes. After converting French Francs into real money that is, you sure your game isn't set to display furlongs or something?

Anyway I got some time to kill this evening, I'll run some tests with the S-18 and see what I get.

I don't know where I got 247 from....

Ah, I'll keep that in mind for when I was going to edit the speed. Was going to make "max range" speed "ahead standard" out of its max possible speed. Less out of realism, more out of convince. Kind of a "Cruise Speed" sort of setting for getting to and from a patrol area.

I'll test thing here in a second.


I'm also curious as to what values determine battery recharge. I get where max range at speed is. What I plan to do since most list endurance as "48 hours at 2 knots", I'm just going to give the distance as whatever 2 knots at 48 hours would be. Wouldn't seem very far. I'm getting that info from wiki, if there is more accurate info I'd happily use it.

[Sniper297]

There's a whole discussion on that somewhere, default values are like;

Ranges
Submerged
Miles = 96 (note: maximum range in miles)
Knots = 2.0 (note: Speed for the given range)

Flat wrong, at 2 knots you get about 67 miles, not 96. Screwing around with the values I found that the max range you can get is 67 miles, but changing those values DOES affect the recharge time in extremely bizarre ways.

Back to the S-18, now I'm getting similar results - start taking damage at 170, sometimes, sometimes no damage at 210 for 20 minutes. Worst trouble is you have to be on the damage screen to see when the hull damage actually starts, no warnings other than flickering lights that I've seen.

S-class was always different from any of the fleet boats, I'll try 82.5 and see what the actual depth damage starts with that number. Just restored the backup copy to overwrite my tests, default S-18 shows 122 meters, about 400 feet.

Odd, my testing puts 100 at around 234feet.


Testing out getting a good Porpoise Setting.


My S-Boat Settings are:


S-18 Class
_________

Max Speed:13knots Surfaced
9knots Submerged

Range: 3,420nmi @ 6.5 kts Surfaced


Endurance: 20hrs @ 5knots (100nmi)


Test Depth: 200ft (82.5)


Yea I noticed the range wasn't 100%, I figure that for friction and weather. But my S-Boat Files are using Webster's S-Boat mod as a base.

Alright cool. I've found out what the values are. No idea what a formula would be to figure it out easy. Either way, they all now crush at the right depth. And I've set them to run at max range at ahead standard.


Even tweaked the hitpoints and crush damage.


Should be interesting. Though I think I will need to adjust them at some point.

For future reference and those who would like to know the setting are


S-18: 200feet; 82.5 Crash Depth Setting(CDS henceforth)


Porpoise, Salmon, Sargo, Tambor: 250feet; 105CDS


**Narwhal!!**, Gato: 300feet; 125CDS


Balao, Tench: 400feet; 170CDS




**: Was surprised to see an older ship dive so far.


Also, I'm going to bite the bullet and leave the setting as what I put in. That is going to make the S-Class very tough. Even Webster wasn't that brutal, he gave them a 5,000nmi range if I remember his settings correctly. Well, I did want them to be a challenge. His mod says they are super fragile to depth charges, so I also made the crush rate 4. Yea, I know. I might lower that a bit, but I increased it for all of them. Slightly changing it for newer ships when little other differences are apparent.

[Sniper297]

Hmmm, methinks you're confusing crush depth and test depth here. Engineers get specifications from a customer (in this case the USN) and in order to make certain it "meets or exceeds" the requirements, and continues to perform to minimum standards after time, use and abuse. Normal standard is 150%, in other words the specs call for a 2 ton jack, design it for 3 tons and no matter how old it gets it will never fail at 1,998 pounds.

Military contractors usually overengineer 200%, or two times the requirements, often more if it's possible without compromising something else - for example Army wants a tank that can survive a direct hit with a 100 pound bomb, design it to survive a 250 pound bomb and it will always, under all conditions, survive a 100 pound bomb.

Subs are the same way, design depth is what the specs call for - also called TEST DEPTH, the depth which the civilian contractors dive to with the Navy buyer on board to prove it meets the requirement, then the Navy will buy it. If it doesn't come back from the test dive USN says to the builder sorry about your luck, hope you got insurance, because it's your boat until we officially accept it.

CRUSH DEPTH (officially "COLLAPSE DEPTH") is purely theoretical, since nobody ever came back from an actual implosion to say "we got crushed to death at 567 feet". In fact the opposite, the BALAO had a test depth of 400 feet, estimated collapse (crush) depth was 600 feet, they routinely went to 600 in emergencies. Some instances they came back and reported accidents where they lost control and exceeded 800 feet without collapsing. The German type VII U-boat had a test depth of 230 meters, calculated crush depth around 280-300, also exceeded in several accounts.

So if you're looking for realism, whatever the real world test depth says you need to add at least 50% to that for the ingame crush depth. For an S class, since they were 20 years old when the war started, 300 feet is reasonable. For the fleet boats I double the specs, test depth for PORPOISE and SALMON/SARGO is 250 feet, crush depth is 500 feet, for the GATO 300 feet is 600, BALAO 400 feet is 800.

Main difference with the S class was not only the age and how many dive/surface cycles they went through (metal fatigue from squeezing and expanding the hull over and over is one reason for overengineering, still meets the specs after 10 years of abuse) but also the fact that like all subs before the fleet boats, the hulls were riveted rather than welded. The PORPOISE class was the first with an all welded pressure hull, no leaks from old rusty rivets working loose (or exploding like in Das Boot).

Little fleet boat trivia - PORPOISE was about 302 feet long, SALMON/SARGO 308 feet, GATO to BALAO 312 feet. Actual difference was in the length of the torpedo rooms, all fleet boats started with the same cylinder 16 feet in diameter and 250 feet long.

Originally Posted by Sniper297

Hmmm, methinks you're confusing crush depth and test depth here. Engineers get specifications from a customer (in this case the USN) and in order to make certain it "meets or exceeds" the requirements, and continues to perform to minimum standards after time, use and abuse. Normal standard is 150%, in other words the specs call for a 2 ton jack, design it for 3 tons and no matter how old it gets it will never fail at 1,998 pounds.

Military contractors usually overengineer 200%, or two times the requirements, often more if it's possible without compromising something else - for example Army wants a tank that can survive a direct hit with a 100 pound bomb, design it to survive a 250 pound bomb and it will always, under all conditions, survive a 100 pound bomb.

Subs are the same way, design depth is what the specs call for - also called TEST DEPTH, the depth which the civilian contractors dive to with the Navy buyer on board to prove it meets the requirement, then the Navy will buy it. If it doesn't come back from the test dive USN says to the builder sorry about your luck, hope you got insurance, because it's your boat until we officially accept it.

CRUSH DEPTH (officially "COLLAPSE DEPTH") is purely theoretical, since nobody ever came back from an actual implosion to say "we got crushed to death at 567 feet". In fact the opposite, the BALAO had a test depth of 400 feet, estimated collapse (crush) depth was 600 feet, they routinely went to 600 in emergencies. Some instances they came back and reported accidents where they lost control and exceeded 800 feet without collapsing. The German type VII U-boat had a test depth of 230 meters, calculated crush depth around 280-300, also exceeded in several accounts.

So if you're looking for realism, whatever the real world test depth says you need to add at least 50% to that for the ingame crush depth. For an S class, since they were 20 years old when the war started, 300 feet is reasonable. For the fleet boats I double the specs, test depth for PORPOISE and SALMON/SARGO is 250 feet, crush depth is 500 feet, for the GATO 300 feet is 600, BALAO 400 feet is 800.

Main difference with the S class was not only the age and how many dive/surface cycles they went through (metal fatigue from squeezing and expanding the hull over and over is one reason for overengineering, still meets the specs after 10 years of abuse) but also the fact that like all subs before the fleet boats, the hulls were riveted rather than welded. The PORPOISE class was the first with an all welded pressure hull, no leaks from old rusty rivets working loose (or exploding like in Das Boot).

Little fleet boat trivia - PORPOISE was about 302 feet long, SALMON/SARGO 308 feet, GATO to BALAO 312 feet. Actual difference was in the length of the torpedo rooms, all fleet boats started with the same cylinder 16 feet in diameter and 250 feet long.

I had to use something for the numbers and I wasn't really looking to guesstimate with them.

Thanks for the info, yes I understand the rating were different than actual, but as you stated earlier there is no crush depth number.

So it comes down to what you personally feel is more realistic and challenging. Plus can the AI depth charge you at 800 feet?

[Sniper297]

That's another problem with the game, instead of being a variable that refracts or deflects sonar according to how strong or weak it is, the thermal layer in the game acts like a Klingon cloaking device so they can't find you at all below the layer. Restriction on "test depth" was mainly a peacetime thing, sub skippers had to report any incident of going below test depth, accidental or for some kind of emergency. But it was common practice in wartime, especially after this bozo opened his big mouth;

http://www.ww2pacific.com/congmay.html

All the more reason to restrict the crush depth in game to that. You can still go below it, and the newer the ship the longer it can survive down there.


Found an interesting outcome when adjusting the endurance submerged. It appears that the @ speed for max range, determines how fast the batteries charge. When I had the S-Class set for 5 knots it took *forever* to charge batteries. When I dropped it to 2 knots and adjusted range to be "2.5" times as long under water time. Of course, now that gives it more range than modern boats..... I guess I'll have to keep it at 100. Maybe even less for the S-Boats. Don't know.


Either way, it appears like the setting you set the max range speed at makes battery recharge take longer/less. Test it out and see if you notice a difference. I swear I did, and am adjusting the classes that aren't at @ 2knots to be that.