Realtistic underwater damage to hulls

[Sniper297]

Nope. I game in a perfect world where congress and bureau of ordinance were keelhauled in 1937 so US subs had reliable torpedoes before the war started instead of farting around for the first two years, so I play with duds disabled. The mod only has selected increases in damage and/or blast radius to reflect what might have been if the 600 or 800 pound warheads were standard at the start.

\Data\Library\Torpedoes_US.zon

Affects only the maximum and minimum damage and blast radius.

\Data\Library\Torpedoes_US.dat

is the file you need to figure out which torpedo is which. Example;

0x8f346dcc43bfbcb2

is the ID for the Mark 14, so I hunt through Torpedoes_US.zon and find parent ID 0x8f346dcc43bfbcb2 and make a note that #12 is the mark 14.


\Data\Library\Torpedoes_US.sim

is the file which has the dud chances for each torpedo if you're interested in tweaking that.

I might do it myself someday if I get the time and ambition, AFAIK nobody has done that. Stock game it's a choice between too many duds or no duds at all.

Before we get into protests that too many duds is realistic, I understand that - but realistic sometimes sucks for a game. I actually served in the US Navy, Aviation ASW tech in Sikorsky Sea King antisubmarine helicopters, USS INDEPENDENCE and USS AMERICA. Simulating a sailor's life down to every realistic detail would involve hours and hours of standing watches where nothing happened, chipping, scraping, painting, cleaning toilets, swabbing decks and running a buffer, filling out tiresome maintenance action forms, you name it. The exciting stuff would make a good game, most of the details would not. To me dud torpedoes are something I can live without in a WWII submarine simulator.

[TorpX]

On a related note, does anyone know how to change the 'splash' effect of the torpedo?

I'm not talking about the damage it does, just the water splash we see.

[Sniper297]

Haven't tried it yet, but I'm guessing it's also in \Data\Library\Torpedoes_US.sim under the subroutine "Detonating". Got a listing for (mark 14)

Impulse=2000
splash = 0x89510fb787997e6d
dud_effect = 0x3b40ac80d1e69cba
Water_Explosion = 0xe37ec3e300ec4ba5
Under_Explosion = 0x2066fb3a0cad3dc2
Above_Explosion = 0x236bf1e6177830ae

I'm guessing those are ID numbers found who knows where, but one thing I noticed on the impulse;

Mark 27 impulse = 500
Mark 10 impulse = 1500
Mark 14 impulse = 2000

Haven't tried it yet but going by those I would guess the bigger the number the bigger the splash.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Sniper297

Haven't tried it yet but going by those I would guess the bigger the number the bigger the splash.

I've read the 'impulse' is the momentum transferred to the target ship; that is, how much it rocks the boat. I guess, this can lead to the target capsizing, under the right circumstances.

I don't understand why above, under, water, and splash are all needed.

[Sniper297]

Gotta remember that SH4 is really SH3 version 2 with a Pacific war addon mod, which is why it's so difficult to figure out what does what - about half the files are leftovers from SH3 and are not used at all in game, and some files which are used contain data which is not used.

I did try increasing impulse from 2000 to 12000, no bigger splash. Big question is if all the 0x89510fb787997e6d stuff is actually used, where is it and can it be modified?

[merc4ulfate]

"I don't understand why above, under, water, and splash are all needed. "

Splash only notes the splash created from the explosion.

Above, under, water are the textures used for the explosion itself and where that occurs. Textures used in this instance refer to the graphic file which rendered a drawing or picture for a particular scene ... ie texture of the boat is applied by the application to a wire frame structure rendering the boat as a ship and not simply a wire frame moving across a wire frame water. The underwater texture, splash texture itself, above water texture and water(line) texture are all different and are all combined to make the explosion you see in the game.

Is it the same thing you get when you create a particle script for a graphic application. You may have multiple textures combine and used by the script in order to achieve the visual aspect desired.



WIRE FRAME UNTEXTURED SHIPS

[TorpX]

So, the numbers are id references, and have nothing to do with the magnitude of the splash?

[SSI01]

Thanks for posting that wire diagram - to borrow a line from Mr. Spock - "fascinating!"

[merc4ulfate]

It is my belief they are texture references.