[WIP] Improved Ship Physics

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

unless you demonstrate the historical plausibility of the US taking precise measurements of every single ship on the ocean and placing a perfect identification manual in our submarines you will remain wrong.

You seem to wish to confuse game play with reality and contend they should be one and the same.

They can not!!

We aren't even coming close to reality when playing a computer game. There's no consequence to bad judgment outside of a Death Screen that provides the player with a simple "do over". We play a game on a 2 dimensional screen, when the reality of life is played within a 3 dimensional world. This game limits "simulation" to only a mear definition of the word....certanly not in its play structure.

You demand that measurements should be inaccurate at all levels. You expect us to accept your opinion that even when a measurement is found incorrect, a competent "real life" individual would not correct the measurement. I've already proved with a tool like the U.S.S. Cod's Omnimeter, the measurement device will be corrected when it's found in error (linked post).

For you to suggest that we should accept poor inaccurate measurements is truly a false hood that neither lends itself to reality, nor to expected game play. No player expects the game to be "rigged" to not provide a reasonable accurate solution due to inaccurate measurements. A player should expect poor results with poor execution, but not with a tool that never accurately measures due to inaccurate measurements.

My providing accurate measurements for a game that doesn't even come close to reality is for game playability. I couldn't care less about your conclusions of mast height deception, or some notion that we could never figure out a ships true measurement (even though many merchants, by all sides, were manufactured by the same shipyards). If there is a misrepresentation of what a game should be, its one of accepting inaccurate outcomes never correcting themselves.

[ColonelSandersLite]

Do we *really* need to argue about OTC in the ISP thread? Really? Seems a touch disrespectful of TorpX's hard work IMHO. Just a smidgen.


And Scurvy, *NOBODY* is going to follow a link to an argument you had with some guy and read the whole thing, including it's links to prior arguments. Just not happening buddy.


Edit:
Once again, for people that failed to spend the renown on sarcasm detectors; By " Just a smidgen", I mean extremely. There's a perfectly good OTC thread on this very board, in which to argue about OTC.

[CapnScurvy]

@ Lite, I'm not the one that brought up an opinion about OTC in this thread!! Your talking at the wrong guy.

But, I'll sure defend my position since it was!!

Thanks for your input, buddy.

[ColonelSandersLite]

No. One. Cares.

To put it another way, two wrongs don't make a right.

[aanker]

As an example, I like the 'Optical Targeting Correction' mod, obviously it was needed, however to use it I needed to modify the menu_1024_768.ini, and other files that changed some unrelated things I was already happy with.

I keep my mouth shut because I am very grateful that there still are talented people who are willing to spend the time and continue to make fantastic mods eight +/- years after SH4 was released. Amazing!

The point raised by RR and some others makes sense when considering whether or not to add a 'much needed' mod; I always need to ask, 'what else does it do??'

It is my responsibility to struggle to learn how to add or remove features in a mod that will change things back to how I like my SH4 to run. So many other players can't mod their games though. I'm not that good either so I choose not to install certain mods I could like because they are way beyond my abilities to reverse engineer.

Lastly, RSRD began as a 'shipping' mod that has turned into a mega mod that changes additional features in SH4 now. I wish RSRD stayed with the traffic layers. I'm not complaining though, I just don't use it.

Happy Hunting! - (I hope I didn't ramble too much here)

[Rockin Robbins]

And that is why I will make my opinion known, supply reasons for that opinion, give links to verification of my claims, but I will not modify OTC or any other mod made by an active modder for the benefit of anyone.

These are Torpx and CapnScurvy's mods and they will remain so. And make no mistake, I don't say their work is of poor quality, the workmanship is the best ever on Subsim.

All modders of megamods, and these are two, give you a package of items, some of which you might like and some like less so. You load it up or you don't. My vision of where modding should go is not theirs. Tough toenails.

I have no problem sharing a room with my strong opinions and I have no problem sharing one with theirs. Subsim is a better place and Silent Hunter is a better game because they are here. Both of them have contributed far more than I have.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

How many modders are going to fall into the trap ...?

One more, I guess.


Since this item has sparked so much controversy, I'll outline why I decided to do it this way.

In my view, the stadimeter is already handicapped by the monitor resolution limitations. We simply can't see details like masts very well. Same applies to aircraft, btw. When I was testing them, I found it very hard to locate them at any distance, even though I knew in advance where they were coming from. I don't see the sense in giving the player a double penalty.

I don't share your view that the RL rec. manual was worthless. In fact, I consider it was a better resource, overall, than what we have. For example, they had info related to speed vs. rpm's that we can't use. Were there errors? I'm sure there were, but I don't consider it sensible to sabotage the whole deal.

I started that part of the mod, because of RFB's inconsistent reference points. It wasn't clear to me that the extra ships in RSRDC used the same logic. Anyway, I decided to opt for a consistent reference point. The tabulation and changes in the listed mast heights had to be done to complete this. If the RFB system had been consistent, and was roughly accurate, I wouldn't have bothered to open the matter up. However, I wasn't going to all the trouble of doing the measurements, and then dump nonsense numbers on everyone. I can just imagine the reaction if I threw in inaccurate data. People would say, I wanted to use ISP, but then heard it messes up the stadimeter/rec. manual, so you can't do manual targeting, so I decided not to use it. I think most people would prefer the accurate numbers.

If you, or others don't like my system, you have several options:

1. You can use an earlier version.
   
2. You can alter the mod to your taste.
   
3. You can accept the stock or RFB physics, as is.
   
4. You can build your own physics mod.

No. 2 can be done easily by going into each ship's folder, and taking out the *.cfg file. Or, you can substitute your own numbers, providing a increased error factor.

I'm not really sure why you have such an issue with this. You have frequently advocated for the use of 'map-contacts'. This provides more accurate data than you can ever hope to obtain with the stadimeter, whatever numbers are used for the mast height.

I agree that it is easier for us to ID ships, than it was in RL, but I consider that this is a matter better addressed in other ways. Perhaps, someone who is good at building digital models can make some doppelganger ships. These could look very similar to standard merchants, but not be exactly alike. I think it would even be possible to design them, so the same type of ship would have different mast arrangements (in the same manner that ships might be armed, or not); meaning a positive ID would not always be possible.




************************************************** ************

Back to my development notes....

7. I had the idea of putting in sub laid mines. Others have talked about this here and there. I gather it has been done in SH3. However, to glean anything from this, I would have to redo the campaign, so I dropped this. Most players would probably find mine-laying missions dull, anyway. If I had my own campaign to build, I would put them in, though.

8. I did more experiments with the good ol' scene.dat., trying to get wind speeds higher than 15 m/s. Didn't work. I sure would have liked to fix this issue. There is a checkbox 'use mission controllers' or something like that. Unchecking allows higher wind speeds (with other changes in file), but also causes the game to 'forget' about the matter, so they end up changing once or twice, then getting stuck.

9. I considered redoing the waves parameters in the same file, but decided it wasn't productive. Some didn't like my weather, but there are actually two scene.dat files. One produces what I call 'mild' weather. It is still stronger than RFB or stock, but is hardly unbearable. The whole point of having weather changes is to challenge the player. If the weather is always nice and easy, what's the point?

10. I restored map-contacts in the game. That is, even the pointy ship silhouettes that you have when zoomed-in. I'm not an advocate of using them in careers, at least not for experienced players, but there are situations where they are desirable. Like for new, or rusty players, mission development, mod development, things like that. I find them very useful in studying and testing the physics of things. This also includes all the aircraft, and the torpedoes and attack map stuff. Some people in the past have stated they liked RFB overall, but used other mods because of this. I figure people can suit themselves in this matter.



More later.................

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by TorpX

10. I restored map-contacts in the game. That is, even the pointy ship silhouettes that you have when zoomed-in. I'm not an advocate of using them in careers, at least not for experienced players, but there are situations where they are desirable. Like for new, or rusty players, mission development, mod development, things like that. I find them very useful in studying and testing the physics of things. This also includes all the aircraft, and the torpedoes and attack map stuff. Some people in the past have stated they liked RFB overall, but used other mods because of this. I figure people can suit themselves in this matter.

More later.................

TMOPlot and EZPlot will change any mod configuration into whatever plotting system people like without making any changes to your mod's gameplay so it's really not an issue. People have their choice of plotting systems regardless of mod setup.

Because of the hard-wired nature of plotting, we can't get to the perfect plotting system no matter what we do. So choice is appropriate.

Although I usually play with TMOPlot, you'll notice just about all my videos are done with EZPlot and the stock silhouettes for clear illustration of the principles being taught.

And yes, everyone who has played with water and atmosphere has come up with a bloody nose. The law of unintended consequences seems to play a heavy hand there. At the end of the process you say "it's different." Is it better? Yes and no. For every consequence you intended there are three others you didn't intend. Two of those are bad. It's fun to play with but seems scarce on rewards!

I look forward to playing with ISP.

[TorpX]

Yes, additional choices are good.



More notes....

I forgot to say, another reason I put back the contact silhouettes is that some of the ships had them (RSRDC's ships?), so you could zoom in, and have a few ships show up, while most disappeared. I found this disconcerting.

I also put in the internal ships names, Biyo Maru, Haruna Maru, etc. Partly, this was for my own convenience, but I think it is better than the bare discriptions of old split freighter, etc.



11. I installed SH3 just so I could extract the scene.dat file and test it in SH4. The reason I did this is to see if I could replicate the way waves influence the boat even while you are submerged. I really wanted to accomplish this, but no soap. I don't know what the difference between the games is, but it's there. I also remember that occurred in SHCE. Even at periscope depth, you were slowed by wave action. It made for difficult approaches at times; in heavy seas, you had to descend to 90 ft. or so, sprint ahead for several minutes, climb back to p/d to make an observation, then repeat. You couldn't always just speed along at periscope depth. It required making a tradeoff of speed vs. observation.



12. I tried to implement some kind of anti-hummingbird feature. This just didn't work. I'm aware this has been done for SH3 (NYGM, I think?), but I've concluded it requires changes to the game code. I tried various changes to the numbers for the pumps zone in the zones.cfg file. None of this produced the desired effect. I tried hard to get this to work. If this could have been combined with a periscope vibration effect (see 6.), it would have been a substantial gain in realistic gameplay, imo.



13. Crew changes. I made considerable changes to the crew set-up. For starters, I found the S-classes had crews that were too large, so they were cut down. I tried to have the numbers close to what N. Friedman gives in his reference, but at the higher end it gets to be a bit much. He gives a figure of 54 for Gato, but 71 for Balao, and Tench. Apart from Radar operators, I don't know what all the extra men are for. Anyway, it makes for a crowded crew page.

In the middle of this, I made the unhappy discovery that the game doesn't seem to do much with the compartment efficiency levels (the green bars on the crew page). I tried many changes and tricks in the subs' *.upc files to get the game to use them, but had no success. Even so, I decided to finish the crew changes. Maybe the game uses these things on some subtle level. It does use them in the propulsion compartment, at least.

I changed the Efficiency denominators for all the compartments. This is necessary when one changes the number of crew in the compartment. The game takes the Ef of all the men on duty (with whatever leadership bonuses they get), and divides by the denominator. There is both a normal denominator, and a battle stations denominator. These can be any value, but the game ignores fractional values, so a entry of 3.5 works the same as 3. This limits what can be done in terms of making subtle changes. The system I finally settled on was to use a normal denominator value of X for a compartment with X men on duty, and a BS value of Y/2 for that (fractions rounded down). This means normal Ef levels will always be toward the low side, and always get a large boost at BS.

It would be nice if there were a way to make more subtle changes, but don't really see a way to do it. If, for example, one has a torpedo room crew of 6 men, with 2 on duty on a normal shift, I used a Ef denominator of 2, with a BS Ef denominator of 3. Since you are starting with a value of 2, and the game takes no account of fractions here, you are very limited. Using a value of 1 would give a huge boost, and a value of 3 would make the Ef levels very, very low. Oddly (or perhaps not), it doesn't seem to make much difference in practical terms. Torpedoes can be launched just as well at low Ef levels, as at high levels.

I increased the sleep coef. for crew berthing, so crew will recover faster here. I did this to make it possible for a skipper to rotate some crewmen, even at BS, in case he anticipates a need for a prolonged chase requiring a high alert level. Crew in this compartment will not increase fatigue as quickly, even when awake, and will recover a little faster. I also added some slots here, so players can even add one or two men to their crews, if they want.

I changed the reloading weapons, and repair coefs. This should make these tasks a little more tiring. I made the watchstanding coef. higher at gun stations, so leaving men at these stations is more fatiguing. Crew sleeping at their guns will only recover half as quickly.

I kept the main coefficients for watchstanding, maintenance, and sleep (in most compartments), as is.

I changed the skill mix used for the compartments, the qualifications, and the basic values crew get. Mainly, I did this because I didn't understand the logic of what RFB used. This isn't to say their's are not good, or mine are better, but since I was changing everything above, I think the parts should fit together, and have some underlying logic.

Propulsion [all engines]
70% mechanical
30% electrical

Command [control room]
50% mechanical
50% electrical

Sensors [conning tower]
50% electrical
50% watchman

Torpedo [usually provide crew for guns]
50% mechanical
50% guns*

Crew Berthing [Hogan's Alley]
none

Damage Control
40% mechanical
40% electrical
20% guns*

Deck Guns
20% mechanical
50% guns*
30% watchman

Deck
100% watchman

*my belief is that 'guns' skill is actually weapons skill, as there is no weapons skill given.

I put back the 'Watch' qualification. I'm not sure why it was taken out, but I think it makes sense to use it.

I made it so that crew start their patrol or mission with some fatigue now.

I changed the starting crew mixes. Mostly this is inconsequential, but there are two crew you should be aware of. First is the Lieutenant-XO. He is the default 'XO' of your boat. He should (on average) have higher than usual leaderships values, and such. This doesn't mean he will actually be great; the game rolls dice on their abilities. The second is the CPO-COB. He is the 'Chief of the Boat'. He likewise should have higher than normal abilities for his rank. The XO is the first shift officer on the deck. The COB is the first shift leader in propulsion. Of course, you can change their assignments, if you consider them sub-par.

I put in more 'officer' slots. Officers are said to give their leadership bonuses to the entire crew. The extra slots don't seem to change Ef levels overall. It appears that the game only uses one officer at a time.

In general, I wanted to give the player a mediocre crew to start with, and let him build up a better, more experienced crew over time.



14. Aircraft. I did a lot of tests trying to improve the physics of a/c. Mostly this didn't work. The values of rudder drag, and wing drag in the *.sim files, that we would expect to use for this, had no effect. Possibly, this is due to the fact that aircraft are in the files 'obj_hydro'. [Shouldn't they be 'object_aero'?] I reduced the values of the max_force, so they are less rocket-like. I might have used even lower values, but there seemed to be a tendency for the planes to wallow in the air, or ditch in the water, when I tried this. These issues are partly a matter of pilot AI.

I checked, and altered where needed the eng_power values. For the aircraft, I used the full combined horsepower for this.

Then the max_force = 0.20 * eng_power / (mass * max speed)

[Note that this is different than what was calculated for ships.]

I noticed the 'Bettys' seemed to want to crash into target ships a lot. This seemed to be due to having a very low minimum altitude in the files. I changed them to level bombers, as this seems more sensible to me. Half a dozen planes didn't have engine sounds. I fixed that. I put in the Allied code names for the IJ aircraft for the displayable names.


A tried to get the AIR torpedoes to work. The 'Kates' in the game really just make low level bombing attacks. The 'torpedoes' were, in fact, bombs, always exploding right after hitting the water (or ship). I was able to get the Kates to drop torpedoes that would run underwater, but they failed to explode at target. I don't know why, but think this is probably fixable, so I left them in the mod. Someone may be able to supply the missing piece.




15. Torpedo changes. I reworked the torpedoes *.sim files. This, of course, to change malfunction elements. At the higher end, RFB 2.0 had a 100% dud rate. I reduced this. I also incorporated two new modes of failure: sinking torpedoes, and surface running torpedoes. I couldn't get the surface runners to make a spray, but they provide a decent simulation of a porpoising torpedo, otherwise. As far as I can tell, they are no more visible to enemy crews, than normal torpedoes.



I guess that's about it.

[TorpX]

16. Forgot about this.
I completed physics work on the JPGunboat01, and 02 for earlier versions, but noticed they did not show up as map contacts. They seemed to react, take damage, and sink ok, but gave no credit. It was like they were Imperial UFO's; nobody would admit they were really there. I was wondering if they ever actually showed up in the RSRD campaign. I'm talking about the armed river boats.

Anyway, I finally figured out what the problems was. They were of the type 110 (environmental). Once I changed the type in the both the ships' *.cfg files, and the roster *.cfg files, they showed up. Not that these are important vessels, but might as well have them. And they show up in the rec. manual now, too.

[pdiddy]

Many thanks TorpX!

Keeping the game great almost 9 years after release.